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It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom.
Bela Lugosi
I'll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me.
I look in the mirror and say to myself, Can it be you once played Romeo?
I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.
People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants.
It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role.
The role seemed to demand that I keep myself worked up to fever pitch, so I took on the actual attributes of the horrible vampire, Dracula.
Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.
To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge.
If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers.
A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.
When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.
There was no male vampire type in existence. Someone suggested an actor of the Continental School who could play any type, and mentioned me.
I'll take any story if it's good.
In the studio the director controls the actor's every move, every inflection, every expression.
The stage is near and dear to me.
I don't have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.
If you are not serious, people will sense it.
In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.
Death, the final, triumphant lover.
Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.
Women have a predestination to suffering.
I'd like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person.
Every actor is somewhat mad, or else he'd be a plumber or a bookkeeper or a salesman.
I have lived too completely, I think. I have known every human emotion.
The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.
Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn't stand it.
Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.
You can't make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.
To win a woman, take her with you to see Dracula.
I guess I'm pretty much of a lone wolf. I don't say I don't like people at all, but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds.
The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.
I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow.
I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.
In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.
I never play without my cape.
In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision.
My body grew hot, then cold. I tried to eat the bed sheets. My heart beat madly. Every joint in my body ached. When I took the cure they took it all away from me.
It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out-and come back for more.
The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking.
The former ruling class kept the community of actors in ignorance by means of various lies.
It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing.
Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.
It was hell to go through what I went through. I didn't know I had so many friends. Many people gave a damn about my situation. They helped cure me.
Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.
The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.
My close-up was magnificent!
I enjoy my work. I haven't been an actor for 30 years without getting pleasure out of the profession.
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