Actors From Hungary

"Me act? Why, I just make faces! Really, that's all I do, I make lots of faces and they pay me for it. The director says: "You're mad, Peter. Make like you're mad.” Then pretty soon someone calls out “one hour for lunch”! I follow the others to the commissary and later return to the set. "Make like you did before lunch, Peter," says the director. "Make like you're mad." So I make like I'm mad again and before long someone says, "wrap 'em up. That's all for today." So I go home, have dinner, go to bed, get up, report for work again and the director says: "Make like you're mad again, Peter. Make like you did yesterday." I find it so easy. I just look mad and like old man river I keep rolling along doing devilish things in motion pictures."

"[Speaking of his horror roles] You know I can get away with murder. The audience loves me."

"For a lazy man I work awfully hard, I couldn't live without acting. In fact anybody who can live without that feeling is a complete idiot."

"Peter was the most inventive actor I've ever known. He was a great scholar, an accomplished dramatic actor and a masterful comedian. [...] Peter liked to make pictures which entertained people, not critics. He didn't have any pretensions about conveying messages to the world."

"It is a peculiar role in many respects, when you see the play Dracula seems to be constantly on the stage. A casual glance would indicate that he speaks as many lines as Hamlet. Yet, as a matter of fact, the number of 'sides' is small. The professor really has a great many more. But, if Count Dracula is not particularly chatty, he presents other difficulties. I find that it requires time and meditation to catch the mood of the character; each performance must be approached with some care. The result is that one doesn’t weary of the part."

"I’ve lived here for 20 years and I have been a citizen for 10 years. I hope I am a good one. I know I don’t take it for granted. I feel I am an awfully lucky person to be an American and I think that every naturalized American and every person born in this land should kneel on his knees every morning and utter a prayer for being an American."