Donald Pleasence - biography

“All the real work is done in the rehearsal period.”

“At this point in my career, it doesn’t bother me much that I’m probably hopelessly typecast.  I like to work, and horror films definitely keep me working.”

“I am not one of those actors who believes he has to live the part he is playing.  I can turn it on and off.”

“I do not use any set methods, not even The Method.  The character after all is in the lines.”

“I loved working with Jamie Lee Curtis, and I felt she was a wonderful actress even that early in her career.”

“I’m the sort of actor who likes to talk about what we’re going to do.”

“The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it.  Even when I leave the theatre, I’ll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself.”

“There are two types: toupee actors and non-toupee actors.”

“Continental directors, as opposed to British and American, tend to be somewhat high-handed in their approach.”

“At the end of the first Halloween, when I shot 6 bullets into Michael Myers, John Carpenter said, Let’s get a shot of you looking out of the window and seeing no one lying there.”

“I believe you can frighten people without showing their heads caved-in.”

“I do think the story in Halloween 5 is a bit stupid, and there’s a lot more blood.  They’re obviously going to take the Halloween series in a different direction.”

“I don’t really know how many films I’ve done, and I don’t look at this as a race that I necessarily want to win.  Nor is it a race that I want to stop running.”

“I was offered a choice of a flat salary up front or a percentage of the film’s future earnings.  I took the up front money.  Nobody could have figured what Halloween would ultimately become.”

“It’s gotten to the point where it’s big news when I don’t do a horror film.”

“John Carpenter created the idea of Halloween, so his vision remains the most focused and intelligently directed of the series.  The directors that have followed have kept the original intent of the concept.”

“John and I had a few meetings about what direction the sequel should take.  I made some real insane suggestions.  True to what you’d expect, he ignored them all and just picked up Halloween II where the original left off.”

“The first Halloween was very well made.  The second one was also well made, though I didn’t like it as well as the first one.  The third one had nothing to do with the series at all and perhaps shouldn’t have been made at all.”

“The idea of dying and coming back is what makes the Halloween films work.”

“What can I tell you about things like Circus of Horrors except that I get killed by the bear?”

“I think people have a tendency to read into more than there is.”

“I’m hardly physically right for the hero parts, now am I?”

“Loomis has always felt himself responsible for the fact that he did not stop Michael when he first murdered his sister, and so he’s got that guilt to live with.”

“The process of building a part doesn’t really stop.”

Donald Pleasence has appeared in the following films:
The Beachcomber (1954)
Orders Are Orders (1954)
Value for Money (1955)
1984 (1956)
The Black Tent (1956)
The Man in the Sky (1957)
Manuela (1957)
Barnacle Bill (1957)
Look Back in Anger (1958)
A Tale of Two Cities (1958)
Heart of a Child (1958)
The Wind Cannot Read (1958)
The Man Inside (1958)
The Two-Headed Spy (1958)
The Shakedown (1959)
Killers of Kilimanjaro (1959)
The Battle of the Sexes (1959)
The Big Day (1960)
The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)
Hell Is a City (1960)
Circus of Horrors (1960)
Sons and Lovers (1960)
Suspect (1960)
The Hands of Orlac (1960)
No Love for Johnnie (1961)
The Wind of Change (1961)
Spare the Rod (1961)
What a Carve Up! (1961)
Dr. Crippen (1962)
The Inspector (1962)
The Caretaker (1963)
The Great Escape (1963)
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
The Hallelujah Trail (1965)
Cul-de-sac (1966)
Eye of the Devil (1966)
Fantastic Voyage (1966)
The Night of the Generals (1967)
You Only Live Twice (1967)
Matchless (1967)
Creature of Comfort (1968)
Will Penny (1968)
The Other People (1968)
Mr. Freedom (1969)
The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969)
Arthur! Arthur! (1969)
Soldier Blue (1970)
THX 1138 (1971)
Wake in Fright (1971)
Kidnapped (1971)
Death Line (1972)
Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972)
The Jerusalem File (1972)
The Pied Piper (1972)
Innocent Bystanders (1972)
Wedding in White (1972)
From Beyond the Grave (1973)
The Rainbow Boys (1973)
Tales That Witness Madness (1973)
Altrimenti ci arrabbiamo (1974)
The Black Windmill (1974)
La Loba y la Paloma (1974)
The Mutations (1974)
Malachi’s Cove (1974)
Barry McKenzie Holds His Own (1974)
I Don’t Want to Be Born (1975)
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
Journey Into Fear (1975)
Hearts of the West (1975)
Trial by Combat (1976)
The Devil’s Men (1976)
Goldenrod (1976)
The Passover Plot (1976)
The Last Tycoon (1976)
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
The Uncanny (1977)
Oh, God! (1977)
Telefon (1977)
Les Liens de sang (1978)
Tomorrow Never Comes (1978)
Night Creature (1978)
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)
Power Play (1978)
L’Ordre et la sécurité du monde (1978)
Halloween (1978)
L’Homme en colère (1979)
Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979)
Dracula (1979)
Jaguar Lives! (1979)
The Monster Club (1980)
L’Uomo puma (1980)
Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981)
Escape from New York (1981)
Halloween II (1981)
Alone in the Dark (1982)
Where Is Parsifal? (1983)
Warrior of the Lost World (1983)
The Devonsville Terror (1983)
Frankenstein’s Great Aunt Tillie (1984)
The Ambassador (1984)
A Breed Apart (1984)
To Kill a Stranger (1985)
Phenomena (1985)
The Treasure of the Amazon (1985)
Sotto il vestito niente (1985)
Into the Darkness (1986)
Cobra Mission (1986)
Warrior Queen (1987)
Animali metropolitani (1987)
Spettri (1987)
Double Target (1987)
Ground Zero (1987)
Prince of Darkness (1987)
Django 2: il grande ritorno (1987)
The House of Usher (1988)
Un Delitto poco comune (1988)
Der Commander (1988)
Angel Hill: l’ultima missione (1988)
Nosferatu a Venezia (1988)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
Hanna’s War (1988)
Ten Little Indians (1989)
Paganini Horror (1989)
River of Death (1989)
Halloween 5 (1989)
Casablanca Express (1989)
Donne armate (1990)
Buried Alive (1990)
American risciò (1990)
Miliardi (1991)
L’Avvoltoio può attendere (1991)
Shadows and Fog (1991)
Diên Biên Phú (1992)
The Princess and the Cobbler (1993)
The Hour of the Pig (1993)
The Big Freeze (1993)
Safe Haven (1995)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)
Fatal Frames (1996)