Bela Lugosi Quotes

#1. The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.

Bela Lugosi

#2. Every actor's greatest ambition is to create his own, definite and original role, a character with which he will always be identified. In my case, that role was Dracula.

Bela Lugosi

#3. The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking.

Bela Lugosi

#4. It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom.

Bela Lugosi

#5. I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.

Bela Lugosi

#6. Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.

Bela Lugosi

#7. That is different, to have someone think that I am evil when I really am not.

Bela Lugosi

#8. This is the most uncomfortable coffin I've ever been in. You are wasting my time.

Bela Lugosi

#9. I'll take any story if it's good.

Bela Lugosi

#10. You can't make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.

Bela Lugosi

#11. In the studio the director controls the actor's every move, every inflection, every expression.

Bela Lugosi

#12. I enjoy my work. I haven't been an actor for 30 years without getting pleasure out of the profession.

Bela Lugosi

#13. In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision.

Bela Lugosi

#14. It was hell to go through what I went through. I didn't know I had so many friends. Many people gave a damn about my situation. They helped cure me.

Bela Lugosi

#15. I don't have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.

Bela Lugosi

#16. I never play without my cape.

Bela Lugosi

#17. A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.

Bela Lugosi

#18. Women have a predestination to suffering.

Bela Lugosi

#19. I will not be tortured, I tear torture out of myself by torturing you!

Bela Lugosi

#20. Every actor is somewhat mad, or else he'd be a plumber or a bookkeeper or a salesman.

Bela Lugosi

#21. People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties ... they live like ants.

Bela Lugosi

#22. The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.

Bela Lugosi

#23. In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.

Bela Lugosi

#24. When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.

Bela Lugosi

#25. My close-up was magnificent!

Bela Lugosi

#26. The former ruling class kept the community of actors in ignorance by means of various lies.

Bela Lugosi

#27. My body grew hot, then cold. I tried to eat the bed sheets. My heart beat madly. Every joint in my body ached. When I took the cure they took it all away from me.

Bela Lugosi

#28. Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.

Bela Lugosi

#29. I'll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me.

Bela Lugosi

#30. If you are not serious, people will sense it.

Bela Lugosi

#31. I look in the mirror and say to myself, Can it be you once played Romeo?

Bela Lugosi

#32. The stage is near and dear to me.

Bela Lugosi

#33. I've been using narcotics for 20 years.

Bela Lugosi

#34. There was no male vampire type in existence. Someone suggested an actor of the Continental School who could play any type, and mentioned me.

Bela Lugosi

#35. The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.

Bela Lugosi

#36. If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers.

Bela Lugosi

#37. Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.

Bela Lugosi

#38. It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing.

Bela Lugosi

#39. I never drink... wine.

Bela Lugosi

#40. Every producer in Hollywood had set me down as a type. I was both amused and disappointed. Bela Lugosi.

Bela Lugosi

#41. Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn't stand it.

Bela Lugosi

#42. Death, the final, triumphant lover.

Bela Lugosi

#43. The role seemed to demand that I keep myself worked up to fever pitch, so I took on the actual attributes of the horrible vampire, Dracula.

Bela Lugosi

#44. In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

Bela Lugosi

#45. I'd like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person.

Bela Lugosi

#46. Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.

Bela Lugosi

#47. Of all the roles I've done on the stage, I'm partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.

Bela Lugosi

#48. It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out-and come back for more.

Bela Lugosi

#49. I guess I'm pretty much of a lone wolf. I don't say I don't like people at all but, to tell you the truth I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds.

Bela Lugosi

#50. I have lived too completely, I think. I have known every human emotion.

Bela Lugosi

#51. To win a woman, take her with you to see Dracula.

Bela Lugosi

#52. To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge.

Bela Lugosi

#53. It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role.

Bela Lugosi

#54. I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.

Bela Lugosi

#55. I have never met a vampire personally, but I don't know what might happen tomorrow.

Bela Lugosi