Max von Sydow.

The Theater Is More a Medium for an Actor Than the Cinema Is. You Are Totally Responsible for What You Do on the Stage; in a Film, Someone Else Can Come in and Edit You and Do Something Totally Different to What You Had in Mind Originally, and They Can Cut You Out, Play Around with the Scenes or the Chronology of the Story. This Happens Always-more or Less-in the Cinema. on the Stage, You Deliver a Performance and That Is Your Responsibility. so Filmmaking Is Much More a Director’s Medium Than It Is an Actor’s.

Sometimes I Receive Strange Letters, and Occasionally People Come up to Me in the Street and Say Odd Things. They Want to Be Deceived, so It Is Difficult to Disabuse Them. at Times, It Is Tiring Not to Be Allowed to Be a Private Person. If You Are Really Marked Out as a Film Star in the United States, Then It Must Be Absolutely Exhausting and Hard to Maintain Your Integrity. Fortunately, Swedes Are Very Reserved as a People and Seldom Show Their Emotions or Feelings in Public, so One Is Not Subject to That Kind of Pressure in the Country Where I Come From.

I Have Been Brought up as a Stage Actor and There Is Where I Feel at Home, but I Still Feel That the Cinema Has One Great Advantage Over the Theater. Namely, Proximity to the Audience. of Course in a Film an Actor Always Has Only Himself as an Audience While on a Stage He Can Achieve a Result Along with His Audience. However, When You Stand on a Stage, You Can Never Work with Your Face in the Same Way as You Can in Front of a Camera.

I Am Considered to Be an Intellectual Actor and I Also Am One Inasmuch as I Want to Be Aware of What I Am Doing. but I Never Try to Influence the Writing of the Manuscript.

Many Persons Believe That an Actor Must Identify Himself with His Role. I Do Not Do That, Although I Do Become Involved with My Parts While I Play Them. but I Find It a Virtue to Do Things Which Are Not of Myself. This Is the Swedish Concept of an Actor.

People Seem to Think I’m a Very Religious Person, Very Serious, That I’m an Old Man by Now – and That I Play a Great Deal of Chess. Actually, I’m a Family Person. I’m Rather Private. I Enjoy My Work Very Much When It’s Interesting And, Fortunately, It’s Been Mostly Interesting. I Like Nature and Being Outdoors. I’m a Gardener at My Summer Home. I Like to Travel. I’m Not as Serious as They Think I Am – I Don’t Even Play Chess. and I Really Don’t Know Myself Too Well.

Acting Is Such a Weird Profession. It’s Such a Futile Thing. Even When It’s There on Film, There’s Nothing Really to It. It Is Not Like Making a Piece of Furniture or Writing a Book.

You See, I Had an Odd Upbringing. My Father Was a Scholar, a Professor in the Town Where I Was Born, and His Subject Was Folklore. He Was a Master at Telling Stories – Folk Tales and Adventures. I Was Very Shy as a Boy, and Heard More Fairy Tales Than the Average Child Because of My Father. This and My Shyness Prompted My Imagination, and Led to an Interest in Make Believe.

I Want Variety, and I Have Had It, but at Times It’s Been Difficult and Tough to Achieve Because People Have a Tendency to Typecast You. If You Have Been Successful Doing One Thing, They Want You to Copy That Success All the Time. and I Hate That.