Donald Sutherland - biography

“At my age, you sort of fart your way into a role.”

“But no, I love acting, it’s a wonderful job.”

“I don’t think I have one iota of cynicism about acting.”

“I had a kind of meandering little career, and then I was given a chance to play one of the bottom six in The Dirty Dozen.”

“I have never planned anything.  I have been doing this job for over 50 years.  I have been paid to work with some wonderful people and it has been a huge gift, to me.”

“I love grabbing my wife and going to a distant location to film.”

“I was up for a wonderful part but I was told: ‘Sorry, you’re the best actor for the role but this calls for a guy-next-door type.  You don’t look like you’ve ever lived next door to anyone.’”

“I would look a little silly playing Casanova now.”

“To them though, not to us, we were just a catalyst for their imagination.”

“When you’re working for a good director, you become subjective and submissive.  You become his concubine.  All that you’re seeking is his pleasure.”

“You have a little bit of talent, a certain amount of good fortune and a lot of hard work in pursuit of whatever truth you can find in it, and if you are really lucky, a terrific partner and I have that and those four things worked out for me.”

“What the nation’s built on is discussion, contradiction and growth, and at the moment you can’t discuss anything.  If you do start to discuss it, you get criticized.  If people hate us, you have to find out why and try to solve that problem.”

“But even with no money you could still go to places like the Scotch Club and, you know, John Lennon might be sitting right over there, but I was certainly not a part of any of that circle.  I was truly peripheral.”

“No, I’m not rich.  I had a tax problem in this country, curiously enough, and my accountant said the British government was patently wrong in taxing me, and they were, but we couldn’t persuade them and it cost me everything I had.”

“Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda.  It was the domino theory.  Iraq is about nothing but George Bush’s ego laced with imperialist ambitions.  And it was helped by your government.”

“Everything was my fault.  I was so dumb.  But if I hadn’t made the mistakes I made, I wouldn’t have met the wonderful woman I’ve been married to for over 30 years, so I guess that makes the mistakes OK.”

“I am so glad my wife tolerates me.  And we have three wonderful sons.”

“I have been able to play a lot of guys and they have kept me working.”

“Not too much, though there’s a certain amount of rancour and bitterness when someone tries to fire you.”

“The only thing I feel passionate about is my wife.”

Donald Sutherland has appeared in the following films:
The World Ten Times Over (1963)
Il Castello dei morti vivi (1964)
The Bedford Incident (1965)
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
Fanatic (1965)
Promise Her Anything (1965)
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Oedipus the King (1967)
Sebastian (1968)
Interlude (1968)
The Split (1968)
Joanna (1968)
MASH (1970)
Start the Revolution Without Me (1970)
Kelly’s Heroes (1970)
Act of the Heart (1970)
Alex in Wonderland (1970)
Little Murders (1971)
Klute (1971)
Johnny Got His Gun (1971)
Steelyard Blues (1973)
Lady Ice (1973)
Don’t Look Now (1973)
Alien Thunder (1974)
SPYS (1974)
The Day of the Locust (1975)
Der Richter und sein Henker (1975)
Novecento (1976)
Il Casanova di Federico Fellini (1976)
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)
The Disappearance (1977)
Les Liens de sang (1978)
Animal House (1978)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Murder by Decree (1979)
The First Great Train Robbery (1979)
A Man, a Woman and a Bank (1979)
Bear Island (1979)
Nothing Personal (1980)
Ordinary People (1980)
Gas (1981)
Eye of the Needle (1981)
Threshold (1981)
A War Story (1981)
Max Dugan Returns (1983)
Ordeal by Innocence (1984)
Crackers (1984)
Heaven Help Us (1985)
Revolution (1985)
Oviri (1986)
The Rosary Murders (1987)
The Trouble with Spies (1987)
Apprentice to Murder (1988)
Lost Angels (1989)
Lock Up (1989)
A Dry White Season (1989)
Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1990)
Eminent Domain (1990)
Buster’s Bedroom (1991)
Backdraft (1991)
Cerro Torre: Schrei aus Stein (1991)
JFK (1991)
The Poky Little Puppy’s First Christmas (1992)
The Railway Station Man (1992)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Rakuyô (1992)
Shadow of the Wolf (1992)
Benefit of the Doubt (1993)
Red Hot (1993)
Six Degrees of Separation (1993)
Younger and Younger (1993)
Punch (1994)
The Puppet Masters (1994)
Disclosure (1994)
Outbreak (1995)
A Time to Kill (1996)
Hollow Point (1996)
Shadow Conspiracy (1997)
The Assignment (1997)
Fallen (1998)
Without Limits (1998)
Free Money (1998)
Virus (1999)
Instinct (1999)
Panic (2000)
Space Cowboys (2000)
The Art of War (2000)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Da wan (2001)
Piazza delle cinque lune (2003)
The Italian Job (2003)
Baltic Storm (2003)
Cold Mountain (2003)
Aurora Borealis (2005)
Fierce People (2005)
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
American Gun (2005)
Lord of War (2005)
An American Haunting (2005)
Land of the Blind (2006)
Ask the Dust (2006)
Beerfest (2006)
Sleepwalkers (2007)
Reign Over Me (2007)
Puffball (2007)
Fool’s Gold (2008)
Astro Boy (2009)
This Side of the Looking Glass (2010)
The Eagle (2011)
Horrible Bosses (2011)
The Mechanic (2011)