Quotes

I was called Sean long before I was an actor, I had an Irish buddy when I was 12 named Seamus -- pronounced Shay-mus. So they nicknamed us Seamus and Shawn and it stuck.

I never disliked Bond, as some have thought. Creating a character like that does take a certain craft. It's simply natural to seek other roles.

More than anything else, I'd like to be an old man with a good face, like Alfred Hitchcock or Pablo Picasso. They know that life is not just a popularity contest.

I've honestly not been too aware of my age until I went to the doctor for a full check-up. He said I had the heart of a young man - "but you're not young, you're 40".

Some age, others mature.

[on turning down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings] I had never read [J.R.R. Tolkien], and I didn't understand the script when they sent it to me. Bobbits? Hobbits?

I'm an actor - it's not brain surgery. If I do my job right, people won't ask for their money back.

I have always hated that damn James Bond. I'd like to kill him.

I've never kept a record of anything. I gave away everything: all the posters, the memorabilia that would have been helpful - and financially rewarding.

[on whether he would ever escape being identified as James Bond] It's with me 'til I go in the box.

I care about Bond and what happens to him. You cannot be connected with a character for this long and not have an interest. All the Bond films had their good points.

[3/03, about the impending US invasion of Iraq] I don't know who could be in favor of it, but it can't be stopped. It is inevitable.

I'm fed up with the idiots, the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and those who green-light them. I don't say they're all idiots - I'm just saying there's a lot of them. It would almost need a Mafia-like offer I couldn't refuse to do another movie.

I said I never would [do an autobiography] and then I thought about it and I said, "I'm going to do it". Then I started. Yeah, and it cost me a stonking amount of money not to do it - because I'd already put the wheels in motion. He [Davies] started to run with the ball with all this stuff. I realized I was going to be spending the best part of my life, and probably the rest of my life, trying to correct these inaccuracies and I can't be bothered.

[on Daniel Craig as the new James Bond] Craig's a great choice, really interesting - different. He's a good actor. It's a completely new departure.

I thought Pierce Brosnan was a good choice. I liked GoldenEye (1995). Timothy Dalton never got a handle on the role. He took it seriously in the wrong way. The person who plays Bond has to be dangerous. If there isn't a sense of threat, you can't be cool.

I think the fact that one's hair disappeared early made it easier. I never had a "transition problem". I've always played older. I played Harrison Ford's father and Dustin Hoffman's father. And this year, I'm going to be 65. I'm hardly going to get into a weight program and do "Tarzan". I could have the best body sculpting in the world, but I'm never going to be James Bond again.

What happened was that I had polyps on my vocal cords for about six years. I had them lasered off each time. But then I had a little twinge of a problem while I was doing Rising Sun (1993). I couldn't get the timbre of my voice right. I couldn't get the variation and enunciation as comfortable as I wanted. So I went back to the doctor and he suggested radiation. I went for six weeks and didn't have any side effects or problems. Then I made the announcement that I had done radiation treatment. The publicists said not to do it, that it would set off an explosion. But I thought, "If you do radiation and it's a success, why not speak about it?"

[on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)] It was a nightmare. The director should never have been given $185 million.

[3/06] I have retired for good. It's been a bit rough since Christmas but I'm perfectly OK and I feel well. In fact, I'm working on a history book.

[on why he resigned the role of James Bond while filming You Only Live Twice (1967)] One of the reasons I stopped doing it was because I got really fed up with the space stuff and special effects. I just found it getting more and more influential in the movies.

[during his speech after receiving the AFI Life Achievement award] Though my feet are tired, my heart is not.

I had no grand plan. Everyone talks about how they knew the Bond films were going to be a success, but it simply isn't true.

[on turning down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)] Yeah, well, I never understood it. I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. I still don't understand it.

It is said that a total ban on handguns, including .22s, would take away innocent pleasure from thousands of people. Is that more or less pleasure than watching your child grow up?

[on being one of the biggest movie stars in the world] Well, that's only because of your price. And my current price? Well, ha, that's nobody's business but mine.

[on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)] I am resting from acting - you might say I'm retired. It would take something really considerable to bring me back. Nothing has been discussed but I hear it's back on.

There's one major difference between James Bond and me. He is able to sort out problems!

I never trashed a hotel room or did drugs. I understand if you get caught in a fight, but to take it out on a room that implies some psychiatric disorder. The way I was brought up made me think about the person who has to clean up afterwards.

I did smoke pot a few times but nothing else. I would never inject. I'm too fond of the drink. At times I can go two weeks or more without it, but then I'm quite enthusiastic to get back to the taste again.

Dealing with this financial stuff was too much for me. It was back to education and I had to learn to understand it all myself.

Peter Mandelson, two times thrown out, is now representing Britain in Europe. In the olden times, they would have hung him up by his feet. The decisions in the UK are made by President Tony Blair and a couple of his cooks in the kitchen.

I am happy to say that I sued Allied Artists for cosmetic bookkeeping and they're bankrupt.

It reads as though one had made great dramatic decisions, but in fact one didn't. I certainly had the drive from the beginning, but the targets and ambitions were much, much less.

One of the things that strikes me is that no matter how difficult or underprivileged the situation you were living in as a child, it wasn't considered difficult. I don't think as children, you are aware of it. You have nothing to compare it to.

"The time came for me to retire because of my rather unfortunate last movie . . . The cost to me in terms of frustration and avoiding going to jail for murder cannot have continued.

Whenever I've tangled with a beautiful spy, have you noticed what invariably happens? Even if I know the girl is a nasty and dangerous little snake, I've still had to kiss her first and kill her later.

[in 2004] The Scottish media all say, "Oh yeah, he's a tax exile". I have paid more tax than the government put together in that Parliament. I still pay full tax when I work in England and the same when I work in America.

[on his knighthood being blocked by the Labour government for the second time in 1998] It's purely political. I have never made any secret of my association, affiliation with the Scottish National Party. I don't like the turn it's taken now when they drag up something, which is something from the past about my violence towards women which I have attempted to answer in so many ways. It might have been a stupid comment of mine to say to smack a woman or slap a woman, I think I said, and it was picked up much later by an unmentionable in America who really worked a flanker and presented a show as though I had actually admitted that it was okay to punch women. In fact, in the near future there will be some kind of revelation about quite a lot of that anyway, which I'm not going to go into now.

I get asked the question so often, I thought it best to make an announcement. I thought long and hard about it and if anything could have pulled me out of retirement it would have been an Indiana Jones film. I love working with Steven [Steven Spielberg] and George [George Lucas], and it goes without saying that it is an honor to have Harrison [Harrison Ford] as my son. But in the end, retirement is just too damned much fun. I, do however, have one bit of advice for Junior: Demand that the critters be digital, the cliffs be low, and for goodness sake keep that whip by your side at all times in case you need to escape from the stunt coordinator! This is a remarkable cast, and I can only say, "Break a leg, everyone". I'll see you on May 22, 2008, at the theater!

[on A View to a Kill (1985)] Bond should be played by an actor 35, 33 years old. I'm too old. Roger's too old, too!

A silent gesture can convey more in a flash than a minute of spoken dialogue. Unlike most actors, who resist directors cutting their lines, I have spent my whole career filleting mine. There are few directors who have not seen my cuts as improvements. Steven Spielberg paid me the ultimate compliment on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) by adopting nine out of ten of my ideas that traded dialogue for added visual interaction.

Anyone contemplating a film career could do no better than read Alexander Mackendrick's book "On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director."

From the earliest days of cinema a fascination with Scottish historical themes fed the appetites of Hollywood. Macabre shockers, or what Robert Louis Stevenson called "regular crawlers", were especially popular. Not counting numerous shorts, five feature versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) were produced in Hollywood between 1912 and 1941, though none surpassed Fredric March's Oscar-winning performance and his menacing facial transformation in Rouben Mamoulian's production of 1931.

Perhaps I'm not a good actor, but I would be even worse at doing anything else.

I realised that a top-class footballer could be over the hill by the age of 30, and I was already 23. I decided to become an actor and it turned out to be one of my more intelligent moves.

It's funny, but the film buffs at UCLA are constantly dissecting Marnie (1964) these days to see how it was done. When it was first released, there was a lot of criticism of Alfred Hitchcock because he used a studio set for the dockside scene. But the backdrop looked just like the port of Bristol - if not Baltimore, where it's supposed to be at. I adored and enjoyed Hitchcock tremendously. He never lost his patience or composure on the set.

It would appear I'm an inspiration for older men. Do I think I'm sexy? I've been told I am. I know that I find certain people attractive and they find me attractive and are presumptuous enough to think that's sexy. I can't answer for all those fat guys out there in their sixties. Are they more virile? Well, it's years since I went to bed with a sixtyish balding man. Look, I'm dealing with maturity alright. I'm much more interest in keeping enthusiastic than anything else.

The idea of the hair was the iron grew sort of crew cut but something kinda put me off that. I would have looked sort of like Ernest Hemingway with the beard and short hair and it would have looked American. So I went Rod Stewart but shorter. They had another wig but that made me look like Sting. I really couldn't deal with it. Well, I could deal with it. I changed it. - On The Hunt for Red October (1990).

I was going upstairs when I heard my own voice coming from one of the rooms. My grandchildren were watching Goldfinger (1964). So, I sat down with them and watched it for a bit. It was interesting. There was a certain elegance, a certain assurance to it that was quite comforting. There was a leisureliness that made you not want to rush to the next scene. Of course, I also saw things that could have been improved.