I've got a lot of weaknesses. One of them is that I often get scared and tense when I'm working - and fear is one of the big threats to any good performance, because it closes you down and makes it harder for you to produce life in front of the camera.

Stellan Skarsgard

I do believe in humanism, and I believe that we should treat each other with respect and care and look after each other. All human beings should have an equal chance to survive in society, and inequality is a big problem in society.

Stellan Skarsgard

Society Respect Equality

Even the most despicable person is still a human being.

Stellan Skarsgard

Till T Still

Maybe there is something specifically Scandinavian that comes out of the long, dark winters - you have to learn to laugh at misery, in a way.

Stellan Skarsgard

You Winters Winter

I did a guest appearance on 'Entourage.' That was horrible, because I'm used to analysing the characters, working with all the details... and they said, 'No no no, walk and talk, walk and talk! It's energy energy energy!' - so it didn't quite suit me.

Stellan Skarsgard

Work Age Working

People don't want to read subtitles.

Stellan Skarsgard

Want Titles Title

Because of ignorance, I wasn't a big fan of Marvel. I hadn't read the magazines. They were not as big in Europe as they are in the United States. They're more a part of modern American mythology. I know more about the original Thor than the Marvel Thor.

Stellan Skarsgard

Art Were Use

We were working under very harsh conditions on 'Zero Kelvin.' We were up there in the Arctic, closer to the North Pole than to a hospital. Sometimes you had to sleep in small Arctic tents with guns to protect yourself from polar bears and stuff.

Stellan Skarsgard

Work Time Zero

It's good to pay high taxes - you have free schools, free universities. It's a much more decent society than those where everybody pays their own way, and some people don't get anything.

Stellan Skarsgard

Society Good You

Even if you're the President of the United States, you still act like a little child and think like a little child sometimes. Childish behavior is what I look for in all of my characters because that is what makes them human.

Stellan Skarsgard

Time You Use

All directors have their strengths and weaknesses, as all actors have, and all artists. What you try to do is complete the relationship and take care of the stuff that the director won't take care of.

Stellan Skarsgard

Strength Relationship Car

I'm so full of useless information; I'm the kind of person that collects useless information. I like to know everything!

Stellan Skarsgard

Very Useless Use

I was the eldest of five children, and although I never saw myself as any kind of leader, as the eldest, like it or not, you have some power inherent in that position.

Stellan Skarsgard

Power You Though

Even with limited success as an actor, you usually have a more interesting life than in many other professions, so it's not an unreasonable choice.

Stellan Skarsgard

Success Life You

All directors are control freaks and very obsessive. I get the feeling that directors as kids, they all have had a childhood with not too much contact with other kids. They constructed their own reality and they continue to do it. It's a funny breed, directors.

Stellan Skarsgard

Funny Wit Very

I am indeed a fan of John le Carre's novels.

Stellan Skarsgard

Car Oh Novels

I don't do sports, really.

Stellan Skarsgard

Sports T Sport

I'm in Stockholm in my office. I just got here after seeing my eighth child on an ultrasound, so I'm in a good mood. It's beautiful: an energetic little skeleton.

Stellan Skarsgard

Good Us UN

One of the beauties of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is the very delicate and strange relationship between the two main characters.

Stellan Skarsgard

Relationship Wit Very

I still live in Sweden. That's my base. When I'm not working, I'm there.

Stellan Skarsgard

Work Working Wed

Any society that starts forbidding certain words or expressions is a society you should be wary about, whether it's the KGB or social consensus that enforces it.

Stellan Skarsgard

War Society Art

Lars von Trier is a very good storyteller. He's like an H. C. Andersen for adults.

Stellan Skarsgard

All male roles are written in a way where you just hide what's going on inside you, and all female roles are written in a way where they expose everything.

Stellan Skarsgard

I think I was 13 years old when my father put in my hands 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.' It was the first real adult book I ever read, and it opened a new world.

Stellan Skarsgard

The biggest enemy of any actor is fear.

Stellan Skarsgard

I played a heap of snow in a school play. I was under a sheet, and crawled out when spring came. I often say I'll never reach the same artistic level again.

Stellan Skarsgard

I've got a lot of weaknesses. One of them is that I often get scared and tense when I'm working - and fear is one of the big threats to any good performance, because it closes you down and makes it harder for you to produce life in front of the camera.

Stellan Skarsgard

When Lars Von Trier calls me, I say yes without reading the script because often the script hasn't been written yet, and if Fincher called me again, I'd say yes without reading the script, too.

Stellan Skarsgard

Casting a film, you can have the greatest actors in a film and it doesn't work. It's a combination of all of the elements.

Stellan Skarsgard

Man is such an amazing animal, and the possibilities are infinite for each person.

Stellan Skarsgard

It takes a long time to make me beautiful, but it goes fast to make me ugly.

Stellan Skarsgard

There is no overacting, only untrue acting.

Stellan Skarsgard

I treat everyone as equals. I can't work if I'm not having fun, and I can't have fun if not everyone is happy.

Stellan Skarsgard

I never help my kids and I never encourage them and I never give them any advice.

Stellan Skarsgard

I love having 30 shots of every scene.

Stellan Skarsgard

There was a Russian director named Elem Klimov, who did his films during the communist days. They were constantly struggling with the authorities and to be allowed to express themselves. But he did one of the best war movies I've ever seen - it's called 'Come and See.'

Stellan Skarsgard

Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.

Stellan Skarsgard

Norwegian kids, they grow up well educated in film. So they have a lot of good directors there.

Stellan Skarsgard

The way I look at humanity, I don't think there's good guys or bad guys. We're all potentially bad and potentially good.

Stellan Skarsgard

Shooting should not be about delivering something I've prepared; it should be a live process of finding things out. When things happen that you haven't planned, that's when the film comes alive.

Stellan Skarsgard

I've never thought of myself as a professional. I very rarely do something I don't enjoy.

Stellan Skarsgard

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

Stellan Skarsgard

I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliff-hangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.

Stellan Skarsgard

I only did 'Thor' because it was Kenneth Branagh directing, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

Stellan Skarsgard

The first time I did a big American film, I was surprised by all the different financiers who came to the set and told the director what to do.

Stellan Skarsgard

In Europe, the director is the king: it's his vision. It's an auteur tradition.

Stellan Skarsgard

The distribution systems and the cinemas have adopted to the blockbusters, and they now get their main income from selling popcorn, and if you don't make a film that sells popcorn, it's very hard to get it out there.

Stellan Skarsgard

Kenneth Branagh is one of the funniest directors on the set. You laugh a lot. He's very skillful.

Stellan Skarsgard

I really enjoy being part of the Marvel Universe. It's a cool bunch of people to work with, and they know what they're doing.

Stellan Skarsgard

I've made six films for Disney, and they have a clause in their contracts called the morality clause that I've always refused to sign.

Stellan Skarsgard

I know how to cut meat, yeah. I know how to cook, basically.

Stellan Skarsgard