Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.

We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not.

I've always acknowledged my debt to Hammer. I've always said I'm very grateful to them. They gave me this great opportunity, made me a well-known face all over the world for which I am profoundly grateful.

I wasn't a spy. I'd have been spotted in five seconds. Yes, I was in intelligence, but that covered a multitude of things.

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

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?'

I've done a lot of films that have become iconic, not necessarily because of me.