Udo Kier Quotes

I learned something, when you have Nazi uniform on, why people were so evil and used their power. Because it’s a very powerful uniform, it’s like boots and black and silver and skeletons everywhere, on your hat, on your shoulder.

If David Lynch wants me to audition I will do it. But a young filmmaker, no. I won’t.

There are many things, as an actor, where you find that a production just wants you for your name. I am not a big, big, big name, but maybe they can sell the movie if I am in it. This I don’t like.

I tried all my life to be a normal person.

I’ve made over 220 films. Of these 220 films, 100 films are not good, 50 are okay, and 50 are very good.

I like to go from film to film, meeting new people and playing new roles. Because actors are like children: They want to play, and I like to play.

Normally, I like my privacy in the high desert.

There are certain people who I worked with, Pamela Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are figures. And they know this. They don’t pretend to be good actors. They were made by the industry into figures.

All of these great directors I’ve worked with, they’ve all come to me. I never go after it.

The first day of shooting came, and of course I was nervous. I would lie if I said I wasn’t impressed. I mean, Lars von Trier hiring me to be the king in ‘Medea’… Lars said, ‘Stop! Stop!’ And I was so nervous, I turned around and said, ‘What is it?’ He said, ‘… Just be a tired king.’

When I have a part that isn’t the leading part, I want to act in a way that people remember. Otherwise, what is the point?

I have a ranch and when I sit there and see a little lizard and birds, I really love what I see and I’m love with nature.

My great joy these days is giving palm trees water. Simple as that.

I’m an aesthetic person who loves beauty.

The good thing about films is, you never know how good they will be. If there was a formula, there would only be good films!

Good movies are difficult to make, and good trash is even harder to make.

I have few friends. I can count them on one hand. I go by myself to the cleaners and the supermarket and I live alone with my dogs.

I don’t mind playing Nazis, but I’ll only play them in comedies. I wouldn’t play a serious Nazi.

Frankenstein’ was more programmed, but ‘Dracula’ we did as it came along because at the beginning we weren’t sure how it was going to end – it wasn’t written in the script.

I’ve been in over a hundred films so I know what producers are like.

I collect furniture and modern art. And I never go to any parties. I rather prefer to go around in nature.

I think it’s important for a filmmaker to know his actors, because you have to work so closely together and you have to like them or you’ll have a horrible time.

I always wanted to make music but I cannot play any instrument.

If you have a smaller role, but if you work with a great director, they make it unforgettable.

I’m drawn to people who are free in their way of making films.

I like Palm Springs because of the sunshine. It’s a little city surrounded by mountains.

I love the smell of the Earth. I’m a good cook my friends say. I love cooking for my friends. So I’m totally the opposite of being evil. I think only if you’re a good person can you be very evil onscreen.

People often say to me, especially people from the press: ‘Oh, you are so evil.’ But I’m a gardener. I rescue animals in Palm Springs where I live.

I collect chairs and lights, which obviously means I want to sit in the light – not surprising for an actor I suppose.

When you don’t have a family, you create one.

I like ‘Brawl in Cell Block 99.’ I think Vince Vaughn is incredible and I’ve never seen Don Johnson like that. It is very realistic. Some people say it is a horror film. It is not a horror film at all. It is very realistic.

Artistically I like to do short-term things. Like I do a lot of commercials, I have the Miller commercial out where I play the Devil in Hell, where Hell is frozen.

I don’t consider myself funny.

The villain is the character that the people remember.

I’m a totally desert person.

I’m scared of high buildings.

I have no time for real horses, so I have a plastic horse. Large size. Called Max Von Sydow. For photographs it looks real. If I do a photo shoot and it stands in the background, you think it’s a horse. A horse is a horse.

I was in ‘Iron Sky,’ the first one, and I liked it very much. I liked the technology being used. The technology has such power.

I’m very laid-back, and I meet people just by accident – never through agencies or anything like that. I met Paul Morrissey, who directed me in ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein,’ on a plane from Rome to Munich. He asked for my telephone number and wrote it in his passport.

My dream would be to play the villain in a James Bond movie, or opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. I like everything exaggerated.

I like the vampire films because of the fantasy of it.

Evil has no limits. If you are a good person, everybody expects you to be good. If you are very good then you become Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa. Then you’re very good because you are helping people. But evil has no limits.

I mean, if you are director like Lars Von Trier who is able to get actors on a table like Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara, James Caan, Nicole Kidman, Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier, all in the self-service situation in the same room, the same trailer, no money, then you must have something that everybody accepts.

If everybody would love each other, there would be no war.

I was fascinated by the story of FW Murnau, one of the most famous directors in Germany, where I come from.

I tried all my life to be a normal person. Stars are in the sky. I like cooking and gardening.

With these kinds of figures you can do whatever you want as an actor because there are no guidelines, there are no real vampires. Except in Los Angeles, where everybody’s a vampire, you know?

In ‘House of Boys,’ I wanted to be in drag. It was amazing to be in the middle of all these drag queens. They did my makeup. I hardly recognized myself! That was very funny.

I don’t wear gloves when I work in the garden.

The interesting part about ‘Iron Sky’ was crowdfunding. It was financed in a very special new way. Timo Vuorensola is an amazing, concentrated person who was able to make this comedy. When I saw the film for the first time, I liked it very much.

I have a lot of palm trees, because they say to me holidays and ocean. I grew up very poor and I had an aunt who would go on holiday and send me postcards of palm trees and I would pin them to the wall, so I’ve gone from that fantasy to reality.

If you make horror movies, you always have to think what’s photogenic and what’s not.

I’m coming from an artistic background, from Europe, making films with Lars Van Trier like ‘Breaking the Waves,’ ‘Dancer in the Dark,’ all his films, ‘The Kingdom.’ But I like both, I like the totally artificial, commercial films where the actor has five or six bodyguards, I like that.

In Hollywood, they make movies like they make washing machines. It’s a business. In Europe, the films are considered art. No producer would ever tell a director where to cut a film or how to re-write the script. I love Hollywood, but all of the time I have to go back to Europe.

Lars von Trier, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog: They all write, which is much better because it’s their baby, and they know what they want.

The Bible is wonderful. It’s only one book, but you can put two grams of coke on top of the Bible, and you first take a line of coke and then you open the Bible. Because then you understand.

I made so many films I thought were great and they turned out horrible, and I made films I did not believe in at all, and ‘Shadow Of The Vampire’ was one of these films I did not believe in during the shooting. And then when I saw it I was surprised what they had made out of it. They edited for quite a long time.

When you get older time moves faster – much faster.

I like to work with directors where you feel they make the movies not for the audience, but make them for themselves. They don’t care if it’s a success financially. That’s what I like.

Nobody of us has ever seen ourselves! We see a reflection in the mirror.

If I hadn’t been an actor, I’d be a gardener.

There’s actors and actresses who I call ‘Trailer Stars’ because their importance is expressed by how big their trailers are. And then there are real actors, who are real good people.

In America as a foreign actor it’s very difficult to get into main roles.

As an actor it gets boring to play always the villain.

I bought a former library, not because I have a lot of books, but also I like architecture, and it was built in 1965, and I like gardening.

Working with someone like Fassbinder was a 24-hour job. You had to be part of the family, and play his games.

It’s logical when you become known to the industry with ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ that they typecast you and want you in their horror movies. That’s how I got ‘Blade,’ of course, because they were fans.

I don’t like to work with directors who have taken an adoption from another script writer, because it’s too much: one of them writes it and then has to explain it to the other, or maybe the director sees it in a way the writer doesn’t want it.

I remember when I worked with Fassbinder in Germany, actors wrote letters to him. But you see, a director wants to discover you himself. He doesn’t want the actor to say, ‘oh, I’d love to work with you’ – the actor says that to other people, too.