- I would have liked to be James Bond.
- [on death] Few people understand it and live when it comes.
- [on declining to appear in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)] Actors prefer to work with actors.
- A lot of newspapers say Terence Stamp is playing himself and we're as bored as he is.
- A lot of people only see me as a villain.
- All actors are incredibly insecure.
- As a boy, I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed.
- [on Man of Steel (2013)] When I heard they were remaking it, or they were doing a version of it, I was kind of sad in a way. Superman (1978) was the benchmark for all of these comic book movies. There's never been anything quite as good as those Dick Donner [Richard Donner] movies. Since then, big movies have become computer generated. They've become unemotional, and so I was sad. I thought it would be diluted, in other words.
- [on Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)] He may be a great visionary, Lucas [George Lucas], and he may be great with toys and effects and stuff, but he doesn't really strike me as someone who was really interested in acting.
- [on his former flatmate Michael Caine] Caine gave me all my early values, like making sure you were doing good stuff, waiting for the right things - then as soon as he got away he did exactly the opposite. Went from one movie to another.
- [on being directed by John Schlesinger in Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)] He didn't strike me as a guy who was particularly interested in film. Plus I wasn't his first choice: he really wanted Jon Voight. He wasn't exactly hostile, but he really didn't help me. I was working on my own, really.
"I'll say this for Schlesinger, when he got in the cutting room and realized he had all this extra footage, he used it. He understood it then. But I didn't have a lot of time for him." - When the 1960s ended, I just ended with it. I remember my agent telling me: 'They are all looking for a young Terence Stamp.' And I thought: 'I am young.' I was 31, 32. I couldn't believe it. It was tough to wake up in the morning, and the phone not ringing. I thought: this can't be happening now, it's only just started. The day-to-day thing was awful, and I couldn't live with it. So I bought a round-the-world ticket and left.
- (On Superman (1978)) This was my comeback movie. I couldn't find work and I couldn't bear waking up every day and the phone not ringing, or if it did, it was my agent telling me they were looking for a 'young Terence Stamp.' (I was 27). So I decided to travel instead of waiting around, and months became years. I didn't do anything of any significance between '69 and '77, I was a swami in an ashram, with long hair and a beard, and I was in orange learning all these metaphysical techniques and breathing and tantra and finally I got to an ashram in Pune and it seemed like the most beautiful women from every country in the world were there, and they were all totally empowered. I was learning to separate orgasm from ejaculation. I was rechanneling the lifeforce I thought no, I won't go back to showbiz, this is my life now. Then I went back to this hotel for a weekend, and I must have sent my agent a postcard from there a year before, and as I come in the concierge hands me a telegram, and it's addressed to "Clarence Stamp" and it's dogeared and I don't know how old it was. And he puts it in my hand and the psychic weight of this telegram! I knew my life was about to change. It was from my long-suffering agent: "Would you consider coming to London to meet with Richard Donner about Superman I and II,' you'll have scenes with Marlon Brando. And on the way would you stop in Paris and meet with Peter Brook about a film of Gurdjieff's book Meetings with Remarkable Men?" And it was like the universe was saying 'You're back in the market, son.' So I was totally confident because I just didn't care. I had let go of all of it. On the Monday I was General Zod and on the Tuesday I was Prince Lubodevsky - it was in the same studio! When I walked on the set, it seemed like everyone was asleep, but I was so, so ready. The only guy who was really up for it was Brando - he totally understood where I was coming from.
- A lot of young directors, they're not confident; they're not open to the emotional level of the scene.
- A lot of newspapers say, Terence Stamp is playing himself and we're as bored as he is.
- I have always had this energy, which I think of as overdrive.
- He's Soderbergh, we're working for him. It doesn't matter what he's doing; we'll see it at the premiere.
- Although you have some films that are a real bummer, there's always a film that comes up where it's just heaven.
- As a boy I believed I could make myself invisible. I'm not sure that I ever could, but I certainly had the ability to pass unnoticed.
- At this point, it's either for fun or it's for money. I don't take movies that I don't really like.
- I was very disappointed that so much of the work I did on The Haunted Mansion (2003) didn't arrive in the final cut.
- I have to be stretched in some way. There's not enough things that come my way that I fancy.
- I wasn't at all sure I could make that sort of leap into that sort of comic book reality.
- In my youth I dreamed of being an illustrator.
- I've been doing Tai Chi on and off for 20 years. The fundamentals of all martial arts are the same.
- When I tested for Billy Budd (1962), I had that kind of confidence that comes with the certainty that you're not going to get something. I was very rough around the edges.
- My star was kind of fading towards the end of the '60s and suddenly I got this call from Fellini, who just appeared to kind of love me!
- What I wanted more than anything was a long career.
- Unless I try, I'm never really going to be at ease with myself.
- It wasn't until I saw James Dean that I began to think that maybe I could actually do this. Movies didn't have to be just this fantasy with this impossibly handsome guy.
- I work primarily for the camera-it's not something I really talk about a lot, but it's part of the way I am as a movie actor. The camera is my girl, as it were.
- I've never wanted to become a politician, an interior decorator, I've never wanted to speculate and make a load of money. I just wanted this.
- It's such a performance to bring stuff into America. It's a great luxury when I am in England.
- With Fellini, the fear dropped out of my work because it was such a happy experience... hanging out with Fellini, having pasta on the set with Fellini, and going out with Fellini!
- From the very first movie I ever made to the current time, there have been times between action and cut when I've sensed some kind of new dimension that I haven't been familiar with before.
- In the case of Elektra (2005) I really wasn't sure I could pull it off. There were so many intellectual leaps. My character, Stick, is blind, but he can see better than most people. So I had trouble kind of finding the logic.
- [stating that he never got seriously into drink and drugs in the 1960s] Yes, I was a cheap date. I was anyone's after a couple of Scotches. The same with grass: I'd be stoned instantly.
- Peter Ustinov was the first really positive influence in my career. He was real and he bore witness to it. The things he said to you, he lived them.
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