Actor

The American cinema in general always made stories about working-class people; the British rarely did. Any person with my working-class background would be a villain or a comic cipher, usually badly played, and with a rotten accent. There weren't a lot of guys in England for me to look up to.

Do I believe in God? Yes I do. When you've had a life like mine, you have to.

In my early days, I didn't know what a good film or a bad film was, and I was trying to make some money. As it happens I was lucky. I made some good films.

To disappear your complete self into a character is quite difficult. I've tried it 85 times, and I've succeeded two or three times.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

At 69, I got the girl! And it wasn't a 68-year-old girl, either.

I am a great admirer of other actors, but I never compete with other actors. I always compete with what I did last, and I'm my own most vicious critic. So I'm always trying to do it better.

The first actor I ever saw was The Lone Ranger. I thought, That's what I want to do.

If someone is very upper-class, you have a stereotype of him which is probably true. If someone has a working-class accent, you have no idea who you're talking to.

A lot of movie stars are not great actors; they're just very good-looking. And when they start to age and they don't have the looks any more, then it's over.

My closest friends are Roger Moore, who is an actor, Sean Connery, who is an actor, Terry O'Neill, who is a photographer, Johnny Gold, who was the boss of Tramp, and Leslie Bricusse, who is a composer.

I admired Marlon Brando as I grew up. I though he was one of the finest screen actors around.

I think what is British about me is my feelings and awareness of others and their situations. English people are always known to be well mannered and cold but we are not cold - we don't interfere in your situation. If we are heartbroken, we don't scream in your face with tears - we go home and cry on our own.

I regard the theater as a woman I loved dearly who treated me like dirt.

But the whole point of the Sixties was that you had to take people as they were. If you came in with us you left your class, and colour, and religion behind, that was what the Sixties was all about.

I don't meet stockbrokers or carpenters or coal miners; I spend all day with actors, composers and photographers.

I was a repertory actor, which meant that I did a play every week. I was a different character every week; for a year, I was doing 40 or 50 characters.

I don't do it often, but I do cry. I also laugh a lot; people tell me I'm funny and I do like to laugh.

You get paid the same for a bad film as you do for a good one.

I did everything. I ran my life exactly as I wanted to, all the time. I never listened to anybody. I'm pig-headed.