Christopher Plummer Quotes

I hate turbulence in life, but also on planes.

- Christopher Plummer

We used to listen to Lionel Barrymore do 'A Christmas Carol' on the radio long ago, and I like Reginald Owen, who played Scrooge in the first treatment for the screen. But my favorite Scrooge was Alastair Sim. He was enchanting, an absolutely beautiful performance.

- Christopher Plummer

I didn't have to keep a bloody journal. It's terribly boring keeping a journal anyway. I hate it. You spend more time writing down life instead of living it.

- Christopher Plummer

In Montreal, when I grew up, I'd go to the Notre-Dame Basilica, a gorgeous cathedral in town. I'd listen to huge symphony orchestras, Pavarotti singing operas; that was absolutely marvelous. I like that aspect of the cathedral, the spectacle.

- Christopher Plummer

Most actors come from the streets, and their rise to fame is guided by a natural anger. It was harder to find that rage coming from a gentle background.

- Christopher Plummer

Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine.

- Christopher Plummer

I think of being ornate as a Victorian quality, little to do with Shakespeare. But even Dickens wasn't ornate; he wrote with flow and naturalism.

- Christopher Plummer

I think anger does fuel a successful acting career. To play the great roles, you have to learn how to blaze.

- Christopher Plummer

I wasn't thrilled about 'The Sound Of Music' - not the movie itself but my role in it. Captain Von Trapp was a bore, and they tried to help by giving it a bit more cynicism, but it wasn't my favourite role. I enjoyed the music, and I loved Julie Andrews.

- Christopher Plummer

I love trying to give some flesh to rather naked bones sometimes. I've always felt it my duty and to try and bring on the character's off-stage life, what happened that is not revealed.

- Christopher Plummer

I think a lot of directors over the years have cast me because they see something of another generation in me: you know, certain people look like they've come from the 19th century. Because I have classical background I suppose that is more suitable to patriarchal roles and easily infuses them.

- Christopher Plummer

I thought, 'If I make 35, it'll be okay,' and then at 40, I got scared, and now that I'm 81, I'm scared to death.

- Christopher Plummer

The first time my father saw me in the flesh was on the stage, which is a bit weird. We went out to dinner, and he was charming and sweet, but I did all the talking.

- Christopher Plummer

I admire Ridley Scott, and I'm thrilled to be making a movie for him.

- Christopher Plummer

Some of the best casts I've ever worked with have been dogs.

- Christopher Plummer

I was always a happy kid. I'd play the piano fairly well. I did all sorts of things fairly well. But who the hell wants to be happy all the time? It's a miserable state to be in permanently. Can you imagine how dreary that would be?

- Christopher Plummer

When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.

- Christopher Plummer

The part of Mike Wallace drew me to the movie because I thought, what an outrageous part to play.

- Christopher Plummer

A lot of people want to retire; I couldn't. You don't retire in our business. What, play golf and watch television? Oh, please.

- Christopher Plummer

I want to paint Montreal as a rather fantastic city, which it was, because nobody knows today what it was like. And I'm one of the last survivors, or rapidly becoming one.

- Christopher Plummer

Most of my life I have played a lot of famous people but most of them were dead so you have a poetic license.

- Christopher Plummer

I was an only child, so I was very demanding. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I wasn't very pleasant.

- Christopher Plummer

I couldn't believe when I first got a fan letter from Al Pacino, it was unreal.

- Christopher Plummer

My great-grandfather was prime minister of Canada, and I had a very Edwardian upbringing. It was a beautiful, romantic way of growing up, until the family lost its money. And I decided to be bad and rough and find the streets rather than the gates.

- Christopher Plummer

Here is Mike Wallace, who is visible to the public, and I have been watching him since the early '50s. Smoking up a storm and insulting his guests and being absolutely wonderfully evil and charming too.

- Christopher Plummer

Simon Pegg is terribly talented, very funny, such a delicious sense of humour.

- Christopher Plummer

Never forget your sense of humour.

- Christopher Plummer

It is a culture voice, but it is a very American culture voice, and I am very used to English culture voice. So I had to work like hell to flatten those R's.

- Christopher Plummer

I'm too old-fashioned to use a computer. I'm too old-fashioned to use a quill.

- Christopher Plummer

I've done a lot of pictures that are ensemble, and I've not always liked the people I was working with, but that doesn't make any difference because you do the job, and often it turns out to be a great ensemble even if you didn't particularly really like anybody.

- Christopher Plummer

I'm insatiably ambitious.

- Christopher Plummer

I actually was brought up by an Airedale. I don't really remember my parents, especially my mother. It was only the dog that I saw.

- Christopher Plummer

Oh, I don't have any religious beliefs.

- Christopher Plummer

They realized I was alive again, even though I was playing an old, dying sop.

- Christopher Plummer

In Stratford you either turn into an alcoholic or you better write.

- Christopher Plummer