With Hitchcock I had little relationship. I was called to replace Bernard Herrmann his favorite composer in Torn Curtain after the bitter fight between them.
I also think the relationship I have with my audience is a lot more complex than what Hitchcock seemed to want his to be - although I think he had more going on under the surface as well.
Four hours of prosthetics every morning the jowls and the nose and it was very hot so they're having to attend to it all day and you're still petrified of so many things such as can I speak properly? Hitchcock never quite lost those East End vowels even though he had the softened California consonants.
So I think it is common knowledge that Hitchcock had fantasies or whatever you want to call them about his leading ladies.
Working with Chaplin was very amusing and strange. His films are so funny but working with him I found him to be a very serious man. Whereas the films of Hitchcock are macabre he could be a very funny man to work with always telling jokes and holding court. Of course when I worked with Charlie he was getting older.
Hitchcock had a charm about him. He was very funny at times. He was incredibly brilliant in his field of suspense.
I studied Hitchcock a little bit at University and knew the famous story about the Birds - that he'd tortured Tippi for a day using real birds. I had no idea that it was a five-day onslaught and that it was the tip of an iceberg that carried on through to another film.
I use every single thing that Alfred Hitchcock taught me in my acting career... I am very grateful for the education he gave me in making motion pictures.
Hitchcock had to fight to the death to make his movies.
Tim and Fritz Lang I loved working with. Not Hitchcock so much. There was no communication.
I suddenly realized how much I loved her when we attended Alfred Hitchcock's 75th birthday party last August. There was something magical about that night and it made me see how much she really meant to me.
One of the main reasons I am so drawn to Hitchcock is that he planned his shots way in advance on story-boards which he designed like classic paintings (he was an art connoisseur). It's why he found shooting on set boring - because he had already composed the film in his head.
You watch an old 'Jeopardy!' and the categories alone are very plain. 'Poetry ' or 'Movies ' or 'Physics.' If you watch it now though there'll be a theme board where the categories are all Hitchcock movies. Lots more jokes lots more high-concept categories and questions.
When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration.