Quotes

[1920s, to biographer Paul Ickes] What do you want? They'll just say, "He's only a movie actor!"

[about his role in Il était une fois (1941)] I'm Lucifer in a tuxedo!

It is precisely as if I am possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being.

[on Le Cabinet du docteur Caligari (1920)] No matter what roles I play, I can't get Caligari out of my system.

[on his decision to enter films] One of the producers asked me how much I made a month on the stage. In dollars it would have been about fifty. He offered to pay me that much a day to act on the screen. That's how the movies got me. After I signed the contract, I wondered if I was selling my soul, like Faust. I didn't even know that I would find movies fascinating. Even if they did make a villain out of me.

[on "Caligari"] It was undoubtedly an outstanding milestone in my career. Before this film I had been known only in Germany. "Caligari" introduced me to audiences throughout the Continent. That meant a lot to me.