"Here is this man, Kinski, and you have to put him on the screen. You have to take all his rage, all his intensity, all his demonic qualities, and make them productive for the screen. That was the task and there was no time for learning. I had to master the situation from day one, from the first day of shooting Aguirre. On set you have no choice. I had to be strong enough to shape him and force him to the utmost, beyond the limits of what is normally required for the shooting of a film. But he would push me equally-to the limit. It was not permissible to take even a little step back from his level of intensity and professionalism. And, of course, he literally would have been ready to die with me, if I had died on the ship in the rapids. He would have sunk in the ship with me, and vice versa. But I cannot deny that there were moments, which were dangerous, when we could have killed each other."
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Original Language: English
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Werner Herzog, as quoted in A. G. Basoli, The Wrath of Klaus Kinski: An Interview with Werner Herzog, Cineaste, 1999, Vol. 24 Issue 4, p. 32.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Klaus_Kinski
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