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.

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.

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

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.

The vampire or the bad guy, that's what people do remember. Lars von Trier, like Guy Maddin, their films are made for a group of exclusive people who like special films. And they are special films, they are art films. And I started with commercial films at the beginning, and later on, because you know, when you are an actor, you have the same cliché like everybody else, you want to be in big films, you want to be known and all that.

I tried all my life to be a normal person. Stars are in the sky. I like cooking and gardening.

Werner Herzog, I knew him for so many years, when Fassbinder was at his highest moment. But we had a rule: An actor from Fassbinder could never work with an actor of Werner Herzog or Wim Wenders. Because if we would have done that, we would have been spies. "Ah, you worked with Werner - how was it? How did he direct you?" I was Fassbinder's actor.