Max von Sydow

I'm an actor; I'm not a director.

The more I had to act like a saint, the more I felt like being a sinner.

In this country, you have movie actors and theatre actors and television actors.

No doubt, the most important thing in my career was my time with Mr. Bergman, with whom I worked in so many films and also in so many stage productions, so it was a continuous working relationship and also a friendship, of course, that lasted for so many years.

It's important to me to work in my own language now and then. I love English, but you can never learn to master a foreign language if you're not brought up with it.

My father was a professor of folklore, and my mother was a teacher until she was married. I had a good relationship with them, and the only argument we had was when I went to university and wanted to go into the theater instead of studying to be a lawyer.

I would love to do parts I have never done before, but unfortunately, if you have had success in a particular type of character, the casting agents think, 'Oh! We'll have something exactly like that.' It's very boring.

Playing the role of Christ was like being in a prison. It was the hardest part I've ever had to play in my life. I couldn't smoke or drink in public. I couldn't.

Nobody told me there was any idea for a sequel to 'The Exorcist.' But my agent called me to tell me they were going to do it, and there was a part for me. I said, 'But I died in the first film.' 'Well,' he told me, 'this is from the early days of Father Merrin's life.' I told him I just didn't want to do it again.

I've never been in a barroom brawl in my life. I just don't do such things.

All my life I've been looking for diversity.

Movies give me an opportunity to go places. I'm not only a Swede but an American, not just a man of my time, but I've been living 2,000 years ago-and not just in a new country, America, but in the Holy Land, too.