I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved.

In Britain, any degree of success is met with envy and resentment.

I was once asked what I thought was the most disquieting thing you could see on the screen and I said, "An open door".

Acting as a profession came to me by chance: in 1946, after the war, I was having lunch with my cousin, who was the Italian ambassador, and he asked, 'What are you going to do now you're out of uniform?' I said, 'I'm pretty inventive, and I can imitate people,' and he said, 'Have you thought about being an actor?'

Comedy is the most difficult thing to do. Easily the most difficult.

There are many vampires in the world today - you only have to think of the film business.

There was a gap of seven years between the first and second Dracula movies. In the second one as everybody knows, I didn't speak, because I said I couldn't say the lines.