Alan Bates - biography

“An emotional performance is usually more instinctive to an actor.”

“I have always tried to work according to what affects me, to a script that I like because it touches me in some way, without deliberately pursuing a commercial career or a particular image.”

“I think actors are privileged.  Acting feeds you.”

“Of course, you start with dreams of being a star.  You want recognition, public recognition.  And why not?  You’re doing public work.”

“You can time a part perfectly and play it badly.  And some people have very individual offbeat timing, which is their own.  It works simply because they are who they are.”

“No film should try to follow a trend, and do what film people think the public wants.  There’s no such thing as knowing what the public wants.”

“I do believe in living out your own time, unless it’s absolutely impossible, which it is for some people.”

“I think that can happen, that two people can love each other and not be able to get on at all.”

“I’ve never believed much in that holding hands kind of love.  I’ve always thought that love is about two different personalities trying to confront life, trying to make sense of their responsibilities, to themselves, to each other, and to the wider society.”

“Occasionally I do things against my inner voice, but you really should go for the thing that touches you most-even if you don’t quite know why it does.”

“People ask, how do you cope, and all I can say is that you do.”

“You can’t always go by the book, even in comedy.”

“You’ve got to have steel in you somewhere.”

Alan Bates has appeared in the following films:
It’s Never Too Late (1956)
The Entertainer (1960)
Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
A Kind of Loving (1962)
The Caretaker (1963)
The Running Man (1963)
Nothing But the Best (1964)
Alexis Zorbas (1964)
Once Upon a Tractor (1965)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Le Roi de coeur (1966)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)
The Fixer (1968)
Women in Love (1969)
Three Sisters (1970)
The Go-Between (1970)
A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1972)
Story of a Love Story (1973)
Butley (1974)
In Celebration (1975)
Royal Flash (1975)
An Unmarried Woman (1978)
The Shout (1978)
The Rose (1979)
Nijinsky (1980)
Rece do góry (1981)
Quartet (1981)
The Return of the Soldier (1982)
Britannia Hospital (1982)
The Wicked Lady (1983)
Duet for One (1986)
A Prayer for the Dying (1987)
We Think the World of You (1988)
Force majeure (1989)
Mister Frost (1990)
Dr. M (1990)
Hamlet (1990)
Unnatural Pursuits (1991)
Shuttlecock (1991)
Secret Friends (1991)
Silent Tongue (1994)
The Grotesque (1995)
The Cherry Orchard (1999)
Gosford Park (2001)
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Evelyn (2002)
Hollywood North (2003)
Meanwhile (2003)
The Statement (2003)