In ‘House of Boys,’ I wanted to be in drag. It was amazing to be in the middle of all these drag queens. They did my makeup. I hardly recognized myself! That was very funny.

I like Palm Springs because of the sunshine. It’s a little city surrounded by mountains.

I’ve done more than 65 films. I don’t count them anymore. The first 10 you count and then you stop.

I mean, if you are director like Lars Von Trier who is able to get actors on a table like Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara, James Caan, Nicole Kidman, Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier, all in the self-service situation in the same room, the same trailer, no money, then you must have something that everybody accepts.

All of these great directors I’ve worked with, they’ve all come to me. I never go after it.

The Bible is wonderful. It’s only one book, but you can put two grams of coke on top of the Bible, and you first take a line of coke and then you open the Bible. Because then you understand.

I get nervous when I’m sitting in an airplane at 10,000 feet and then the sign comes on: ‘Please fasten your seatbelt for turbulence.’

Audition is the worst thing. It’s like cleaning furniture in a department store.

My agent is a vampire, my lawyer is a vampire, they’re all vampires, but they don’t suck your blood, they take your money! Vampires are everywhere. It just depends what they’re running after.

I have few friends. I can count them on one hand. I go by myself to the cleaners and the supermarket and I live alone with my dogs.

When I’m depressed and the weather is bad I look up my page on IMDb and I have my coffee and feel better. There are even films on there I don’t know about!

Warhol took outcasts and made them into stars. There will never be another artist like him.

I’ll tell you what a friendship is to me. Friendship to me is, if my friends need my little finger to live, I’m going to have it cut off. I’m going to the hospital, they cut off my finger, and maybe I have a gold finger instead, and I become famous. But I still give it to my friend.

There’s actors and actresses who I call ‘Trailer Stars’ because their importance is expressed by how big their trailers are. And then there are real actors, who are real good people.

Working with someone like Fassbinder was a 24-hour job. You had to be part of the family, and play his games.

I want to have fun. Big Hollywood films can be fun, but you know it’s an industry, and if you don’t function, they send you home.

There are certain people who I worked with, Pamela Anderson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are figures. And they know this. They don’t pretend to be good actors. They were made by the industry into figures.

If David Lynch wants me to audition I will do it. But a young filmmaker, no. I won’t.

I’m not an ensemble actor, because it’s always a lot of ego when you’re all together in the scene. It’s kind of intellectual fighting for something.

The good thing about films is, you never know how good they will be. If there was a formula, there would only be good films!

Evil has no limits. If you are a good person, everybody expects you to be good. If you are very good then you become Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa. Then you’re very good because you are helping people. But evil has no limits.

I’m an aesthetic person who loves beauty.

I don’t mind playing Nazis, but I’ll only play them in comedies. I wouldn’t play a serious Nazi.

The interesting part about ‘Iron Sky‘ was crowdfunding. It was financed in a very special new way. Timo Vuorensola is an amazing, concentrated person who was able to make this comedy. When I saw the film for the first time, I liked it very much.

I’m very laid-back, and I meet people just by accident – never through agencies or anything like that. I met Paul Morrissey, who directed me in ‘Dracula‘ and ‘Frankenstein,’ on a plane from Rome to Munich. He asked for my telephone number and wrote it in his passport.

If everybody would love each other, there would be no war.

I made films, like ‘Shadow of the Vampire,’ and I did not like the work I did on it and then Willem Dafoe was nominated for the Oscar. I made films like ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio‘ with Martin Landau. I thought I would get nominated and it flopped. You never know.

Artistically I like to do short-term things. Like I do a lot of commercials, I have the Miller commercial out where I play the Devil in Hell, where Hell is frozen.

It’s logical when you become known to the industry with ‘Dracula’ and ‘Frankenstein’ that they typecast you and want you in their horror movies. That’s how I got ‘Blade,’ of course, because they were fans.

For me to do interviews is painful. People don’t know that. To do an interview is going back in time. And to go back in time, maybe it wasn’t all the time that good.

I have no time for real horses, so I have a plastic horse. Large size. Called Max Von Sydow. For photographs it looks real. If I do a photo shoot and it stands in the background, you think it’s a horse. A horse is a horse.

When you start in movie business… It is a business, actually. Nothing to do with art. Picasso is art, and Giacometti, but film acting is no art. Just the luck of being discovered, maybe.

If you make horror movies, you always have to think what’s photogenic and what’s not.

I’m scared of high buildings.

Frankenstein’ was more programmed, but ‘Dracula’ we did as it came along because at the beginning we weren’t sure how it was going to end – it wasn’t written in the script.

I’m not very career-driven, never was.

I like ‘Brawl in Cell Block 99.’ I think Vince Vaughn is incredible and I’ve never seen Don Johnson like that. It is very realistic. Some people say it is a horror film. It is not a horror film at all. It is very realistic.

I collect chairs and lights, which obviously means I want to sit in the light – not surprising for an actor I suppose.

I like digital films.

I think it’s important for a filmmaker to know his actors, because you have to work so closely together and you have to like them or you’ll have a horrible time.

I always wanted to make music but I cannot play any instrument.

Nobody of us has ever seen ourselves! We see a reflection in the mirror.

There are a few directors – quite a few – who I would like to work with, but I have never written a letter to a director in my life.

I’m a very quiet person actually.

I love the smell of the Earth. I’m a good cook my friends say. I love cooking for my friends. So I’m totally the opposite of being evil. I think only if you’re a good person can you be very evil onscreen.

I tried all my life to be a normal person.

Anybody can act.

I learned something, when you have Nazi uniform on, why people were so evil and used their power. Because it’s a very powerful uniform, it’s like boots and black and silver and skeletons everywhere, on your hat, on your shoulder.

My great joy these days is giving palm trees water. Simple as that.

Sometimes, you can also have a big impact in a film just by doing something unexpected.