Klaus Kinski

"If I was doing a movie that was really bad, I always realized that I had to play my role as good as possible when the camera was on me. The fact that the movie was total shit did not bother me. For example, lets say that theres a hand that is used to playing the violin excellently. Lets say that hand belongs to the worlds greatest violinist. But, the man finds himself out of work. Someone tells him "I dont have a job for a violinist but I do have a job for someone who is willing to carry out trash." The violinist takes the job. He has to do his new job well or else he wont get paid. He wont eat. Although his hand is forced to carry garbage, that doesnt diminish the skill of the hand."

"I saw Stay as You Are and Tess only. I didnt ask her if she saw every movie I did. I could never think about that. Why do I have to see every movie she did? Why? Sometimes she did movies with people I was bored by. I dont care about this or that director. So if she is so beautiful in a movie, it is because of her, not a director. So why should I see the movie then? As long as I am not blind, I dont need a dog to see. If I am blind, maybe I would like the dog to lead me. I am not blind. I dont have to see her movies. I know my child."

"At first, I felt this thing coming up in myself, just really physically growing in myself and happening, but it was a jungle, so I couldnt distinguish things so much. I knew there were, in myself, the souls of millions of people who lived centuries ago - not just people but animals, plants, the elements, things, even, matter - that all of these exist in me, and I felt this. OK, this pushed and pushed and pushed. OK, that was the beginning... And through the years it became clearer and clearer, this thing; it started to separate itself. I could make it come when I had to concentrate on, lets say, a person I had to become - this thing became stronger. And took more of me. In this moment, I let it do it, because I wanted, I had to be this person. And as I was led to doing it, there was then no way back. And the more I tried to do it, the more I hated it. But there was no way back anymore; it was always going farther and farther and farther. Until one day, when I was walking through the streets of Paris, I started crying, because I could look at a man, a woman, a dog, anything, and receive it, anything, everything; there was no difference between physical and psychological. I felt like I was breaking out, breaking up, receiving everything, every moment, even things I did not see. There is no turning back from this. But this danger is the power you have. It is this same power that lets you hold an audience when you are on a stage. Then it is a concentration, the same concentration that in kung fu is used for the kick that kills or to break a table with your hand. It means that you are sure of the power and that you relinquish yourself to it"

"Here is this man, Kinski, and you have to put him on the screen. You have to take all his rage, all his intensity, all his demonic qualities, and make them productive for the screen. That was the task and there was no time for learning. I had to master the situation from day one, from the first day of shooting Aguirre. On set you have no choice. I had to be strong enough to shape him and force him to the utmost, beyond the limits of what is normally required for the shooting of a film. But he would push me equally-to the limit. It was not permissible to take even a little step back from his level of intensity and professionalism. And, of course, he literally would have been ready to die with me, if I had died on the ship in the rapids. He would have sunk in the ship with me, and vice versa. But I cannot deny that there were moments, which were dangerous, when we could have killed each other."

"The German government writes me that it has awarded me the supreme distinction for an actor: the Gold Film Ribbon. What gall! Who gave those shitheads the right to award me anything? Did it never occur to them that there might be somebody who doesnt want their shit? What filthy arrogance to award me - me, of all people! - a prize! What does this prize mean, anyway? Is it a reward? For what? For my pains, sufferings, despair, tears? A prize for every hell, every dying, every resurrection? Prizes for death and life? Prizes for passion, for hate and love? And how did you shitheads intend to hand me the prize? As a gift? As a favour, like those tasteless hosts that the pope distributes like fast food? Ill kick you! Or do I come submissive, whimpering? Ill kick you again! And theres not even a check. Its outrageous!"

"My father is so expressive that things he feels even before they are thoughts are visible on his skin. He heats up. What other people work on, he was born with. Hes got eyes like the sky and like hell at the same time. Theyre so clear and blue and alert and serious, and then theyre like hell. Thats how he is. He is total light and pureness and then hell. He gives totally or he gives nothing. He is like the sun, then an iceberg, then nonexistent, and then the sun again. Which is fine. Its a lot better than most people are."

"People like Brando are just kindergarten compared to Kinski. He is totally mad and unpredictable. You can see something raging in this man. We liked each other, we hated each other and we respected each other, even though we hatched serious plots to murder each other."

"I am not the official Church Jesus who is accepted by policemen, bankers, judges, executioners, officers, church bosses, politicians and similar representatives of power. I am not your Superstar who keeps playing his part for you on the cross, and whom you hit in the face when he steps out of his role, and who therefore cannot call out to you, "I am fed up with all your pomp and all your rituals! Your incense is disgusting. It stinks of burnt human flesh. I cant bear your holy celebrations and holidays any longer. You can pray as much as you like, Im not listening. Keep all your idiotic honours and laudations. I wont have anything to do with them. I do not want them. I am no pillar of peace and security. Security that you achieve with tear gas and with billy clubs. I am no guarantee for obedience and order either. Order and obedience at reform schools, prisons, penal institutions, insane asylums. I am the disobedient one, the restless one who does not live in any house. Nor am I a guarantee for success, savings accounts and possessions. I am the homeless one without a permanent home who stirs up trouble wherever he goes. I am the agitator, the invoker, I am the scream. I am the hippie, bum, Black Power, Jesus people. I want to free the prisoners. I want to make the blind see. I want to redeem the tortured. I want to cast love into your hearts, the love that reaches out beyond everything that exists. I want to turn you into living human beings, immortals."

"At a performance everything works out on its own. Ive solved the mystery: You have to submit silently. Open up, let go. Let anything penetrate you, even the most painful things. Endure. Bear up. Thats the magic key! The text comes by itself, and its meaning shakes the soul. Everything else is taken care of by the life one has to live without sparing oneself. You mustnt let scar tissue form on your wounds; you have to keep ripping them open in order to turn your insides into a marvelous instrument that is capable of anything. All this has its price. I become so sensitive that I cant live under normal conditions. Thats why the hours between performances are worst."

"The truth is that I wasnt there with her when she needed me. Now she sees how I love Nanhoï and she believes that I cant love her as much as I love my son. That Ive never loved her like this. I try to tell her that shes distorting everything in her pain and not seeing the truth. That Ive painfully missed her since our separation and that Ive never stopped loving her. But even though she gradually calms down, I have a feeling she doesnt believe me."

"I have made many things wrong in my life. I should have made many things better in my life, not only to Nastassja but many things. If someone said to me, You did everything wrong in your life, I would say, Okay, maybe youre right. But my way is the only way I can exist. I can feel and express things to understand how true somethings is. People in my life have tried to change me, and I have blown up even more violently and I said, What, do you really want to distort me? Whats left, you have to do it your way. I dont need a Bible to tell me Im doing wrong a hundred million times in my life. Everything I did wrong in my life I am suffering a long time. Its coming back and back and back and back to me for years. I am not ashamed to tell myself what I am doing wrong, but there must always be a way to understand thats all I can do. What I want to say is I tried, okay, I tried, and Im not breaking my head that its not happened. Its like a growing plant. This tiny things is coming out, you can feel it coming out, its breaking through, so it may be one day that she will understand many more things than she understands today. Nobody can come to me and say, Why havent you seen this and why and why. I know what I have to do."

"Not only is she obsessed with fur, she also collects clothes, houses, land, islands, and, above all, diamonds. Lots of diamonds. Big ones. The biggest are the size of pigeon eggs, and shes already wearing them for breakfast. I feel sorry for her. Shed give it all up just to be a couple of years younger."