“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.”

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.

Death, the final, triumphant lover.

I have lived too completely. I think I have known every human emotion.

When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.

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.

It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role.

Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.

There have been times when I’ve been asked to do things and I’ve thought, “This is great! This is a great script. But, I do not believe myself in this role.”

The role of any exceptional facilitator or consultant is to work themselves out of a job.

It depends, because sometimes an action role can be very demanding, and sometimes a dialogue-driven character can be very demanding, and vice versa. It depends.

We’re already seeing women breaking down those barriers in what was once male-dominated. There are opportunities for women to fill those roles.

Some roles have been with me forever

I’ve been fortunate in my career to have performed in revivals of great musicals and to have originated roles in musicals that have in turn been revived. And I’m not dead!

Yes. I’m a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.

Instantly available without continuous presence is probably the best role a mother can play.