HERBERT LOM (1917-2012)                                 

‘Peter Sellers was always a mixed-up guy, a childish fellow. But if you’re fond of children, you’re also fond of childish men. He was always very helpful to me. After he was famous and when I was still in trouble with the US embassy, he wrote a letter in support of me which was magnificent. But is true that he was very cruel to his children. He was so hurt by the way children treat you when you’re their father. I have been hurt by my children, but he was not in possession of a proper brain when it came to these things.’

‘America would not let me in. I was suspected of being a fellow traveler, a Communist sympathizer. Everybody had Communist leanings. But I was not a lover of Communist regimes, and I admired America greatly. Yet, for many years, I was not allowed in.’

ELLEN POMPEO (1969 – )                                     

‘I don’t find acting to be a particularly noble way to make a living. I’m not saving anybody’s life; I’m not a teacher; I’m not working for UNICEF. I don’t think I’m some big deal.’

KATHERINE HEIGL (1978 – )  (in My Father the Hero)                             

[On wearing a thong in My Father the Hero]: ‘Oh God, I look back now and it seems so gross. At just fourteen years old, I had to wear a thong bikini. And then they used that scene in the trailer, so my entire school saw it! There are still men who come up to me today, and say, ‘You were really hot in that film!’ I was fourteen, for God’s sake!’

HENRY FONDA (1905-82)                                     

‘I hope you won’t be disappointed. You see I am not a very interesting person. I haven’t ever done anything except be other people. I ain’t really Henry Fonda! Nobody could be. Nobody could have that much integrity. I’m not that pristine pure. I guess I’ve broken as many rules as the next feller. But I reckon my face looks honest enough and if people buy it, Hallelujah.’

[On War and Peace (1956) and referring to Tolstoy, the author of the book]: ‘When I first agreed to do it, the screenplay by Irwin Shaw was fine, but what happened? King Vidor used to go home nights with his wife and rewrite it. All the genius of Tolstoy went out the window.’

ROSAMUND PIKE (1979 – )                                              

[Regarding nudity on stage]: ‘I kind of perversely put on weight when I had to be naked on stage, which now I look back on I think is quite strange. I look at pictures of that time – because my mum saves stuff – and I think: ‘Oh gosh, I actually gained weight, which is not what people would normally do if they knew they had to appear naked every night.’

‘Filming Pride and Prejudice (2005) was a joy and made for one of my happiest summers ever. ‘It could well be that the story brings out the best in people – and it sounds so cheesy, but we really did behave like a family. The girls playing the younger sisters had never been on a film set before and wanted to socialize all the time, so we picnicked, hung out in a beautiful country house and went swimming naked in a lake. It was idyllic.’

GEORGE HAMILTON (1939 – )                                                            

‘I doubt anyone in Hollywood has had more ‘dates’ than me. Women don’t like men who know they’re good-looking. They’d much prefer a man who doesn’t know he’s good-looking. Basically, I’m a shy human being. Very introverted.’

PAUL HENREID (1908-92)                                                            

‘I never felt Lee Strasberg could act, and I fail to see how someone who can’t act can teach acting.’

BASIL RATHBONE (1892-1967)                                       

[From a private letter written when he was serving in World War One]: ‘Out here, we step over death every day. We stand next to it while we drink our tea. It’s commonplace and ordinary. People who had lives and tried to hold onto them and didn’t, now slump and stare and melt slowly to nothing. You meet their eyes, or what used to be their eyes and you feel ashamed…Grieving is only ridiculous in this place. It could be me today or tomorrow and I shouldn’t want anyone to bother grieving over that.’

MARK RUFFALO (1967 – )                                                                                          

[After being diagnosed with a benign brain tumor (more specifically, an acoustic neuroma) in 2002, that was subsequently removed]: ‘The whole experience of getting close to mortality changed my perspective on work. I wasn’t enjoying acting before, I felt like I wasn’t in charge of my career. I wasn’t doing things that made me feel good. I was really bitter, I thought I deserved more, and I wasn’t grateful for all the great shit that had happened to me. If you’re not grateful, then it’s very easy to be an asshole. After the brain tumor happened, I realized I love acting. I’ve always loved it, I may never get a chance to do it again.’

NASTASSJA KINSKI (1961 -)                                           

‘If you get typecast, it’s up to you to break that. Since I stared real young, getting roles where they would ask me to take my clothes off, I would get those types of scripts over and over. If I had somebody to protect me, or if I had felt more secure about myself, I would not have accepted certain things. Nudity things. And inside it was just tearing me apart.’

LYNDA CARTER (1951 – )                                                            

[When asked if she made a profit from the ‘Wonder Woman’ dolls]: ‘I think that you’re probably familiar with a problem in Hollywood, and that is that they market you and they use you. They did a mask of my face and put it on the doll, and they put my name on it for the first run. And then they took my name off and said they didn’t have to pay me anymore. So it’s the kind of thing that you can be used so much in this industry. I make nothing. I don’t even make anything from the re-runs. And don’t ever settle for ‘net profits’. It is called ‘creative accounting’.