“Every actor’s greatest ambition is to create his own, definite and original role, a character with which he will always be identified. In my case, that role was Dracula.”

Supernatural perhaps…baloney, perhaps not!

The stage is near and dear to me.

To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge.

Every actor is somewhat mad, or else he’d be a plumber or a bookkeeper or a salesman.

I’ll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me.

I’ve been using narcotics for 20 years.

To die, to be really dead, that must be glorious.

The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.

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.

You can’t make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.

The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.

That is different, to have someone think that I am evil when I really am not.

I don’t have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.

Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.

Women have a predestination to suffering.

Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.

[Democrats] are trying on every front to increase the role of government.

I knew her work very well and I knew that if she offered me a role in her movie, it wouldn’t be something stupid. So I agreed to do the film before I read the script.

I’m not playing a role. I’m being myself, whatever the hell that is.

Satire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist’s role ends at the screen.

When you use an armament, you use it to defend the civilians. You kill terrorists in order to defend civilians. That’s the natural role of any army in the world.

I guess I feel like it’s a gift to meet those talented artists like George Lucas and Oliver Stone, Spike Lee and Richard Kelly. Even if it’s a small role, it’s a gift to be working that closely with them.

When I work with filmmakers today, I’m really an advocate for the women’s roles that I see, to make them as layered and as deep as possible. I think many of them are underwritten.

Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying… We’ve shopped till we dropped alright, face down on the floor.