F. Murray Abraham - biography

“Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don’t know if you’d call him a great actor, but he’s amazing in terms of his presence, and he is interesting enough that you want to watch him.”

“I acted my heart out.”

“I’m a very proud actor.”

“Milos said, You’re my first choice.  From my point of view, that doesn’t pay the rent.  I said, Tell me what I have to do next because I’m busy painting my kitchen.”

“Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get.  I was really scared.  I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk.  For three days, I couldn’t answer the phone.”

“With Connery, he does act.  He is in complete command.  He completely trusts the person first, then the instrument.  I’ve worked with his son also, on a picture in Russia.”

“You keep getting offered the same role you got the Oscar for.  Every time you complain, they don’t change the script.  They just offer you more money.”

“I think creativity is spiritual.  I absolutely believe that.”

“The difficulty is capturing surprise on film.”

“I love parties.  I love a good time.”

“With Dick Smith there, and the words of Peter Shaffer...  they’ve got to be the most beautiful descriptions in music ever written on film or in literature.  And we could hear the music accompanying the words...  What more can you ask for?”

“I don’t believe my wife has ever made love to an Academy Award winner before.”

“People desire power.  I don’t know why they want it so.  It seems to me it implies a hugely superior intellect which separates them from most of the populace.”

“Woody Allen sets are very quiet.  Extraordinary sense of power from a man who doesn’t do anything except just stand there.”

“Whenever there were parties, I wasn’t invited because I began to be like that character.  In a way, that contributed to the success of the performance.”

“I trust that the president will try, just give it one more shot, some revolutionary way of not doing this, of bringing all those kids back home safely.”

“I’d like President Bush to get a gun in his hands.  I’ll go with him.  I can’t think of anything better than to die in place ’s just beginning their lives.”

“If these men decided that they have to go in there and fight, I want them to send their own children and grandchildren.  I want them to not send a bunch of strangers’ kids in there to fight and die.”

“The idea that you can make love and not war really is pretty neat.  That thing in Korea, the thing in Israel - that’s all over the world.  There must be a new way of thinking.”

“There are certain men and women who, from the minute they step in front of a camera, that’s exactly where they belong.  Connery’s one.”

“All the stuff that you visualized that was going to work so beautifully, you discover is trashed, so you jump to something else.”

“As much preparation as I had made for the old man Salieri, gestures and so on, the fact is after sitting for hours, your movements are kind of slow.”

“I don’t want to talk in terms of miracles.  I think this is a very serious situation.  But I do want to talk in terms of Bush becoming a man of the hour, and I think this is way to do it.”

“I have two brothers buried in the military cemetery in Texas.  I don’t want to see any more of that.”

“I just throw it out and see what happens.  If it sounds and feels right, then I continue.”

“I really like to experiment.  That’s the only way I can work.  It’s instinctive.”

“I’m just having a wonderful time.  It’s an interesting thing that I’m very comfortable with this material and I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because I did MacBeth.”

“I’m not going to just say nice things about everybody unless I mean it.”

“Once I looked into a mirror at my face I felt like it was completely convincing.  I was Salieri.”

“There is one confrontation scene toward the end of the picture.  In the middle of the scene, I thought, That’s Sean Connery!  I don’t know how else to describe Sean Connery.  I still feel that way.”

F. Murray Abraham has appeared in the following films:
They Might Be Giants (1971)
Serpico (1973)
The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975)
The Sunshine Boys (1975)
All the President’s Men (1976)
The Ritz (1976)
The Big Fix (1978)
Madman (1978)
Scarface (1983)
Amadeus (1984)
Russicum - I giorni del diavolo (1988)
Beyond the Stars (1989)
An Innocent Man (1989)
Cadence (1990)
La Batalla de los Tres Reyes (1990)
Mobsters (1991)
Money (1991)
By the Sword (1991)
Eye of the Widow (1991)
Last Action Hero (1993)
Loaded Weapon 1 (1993)
Sweet Killing (1993)
L’Affaire (1994)
Nostradamus (1994)
Jamila (1994)
Surviving the Game (1994)
Mighty Aphrodite (1995)
Dillinger and Capone (1995)
Children of the Revolution (1996)
Baby Face Nelson (1996)
Mimic (1997)
Eruption (1997)
Una vacanza all’inferno (1997)
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Muppets from Space (1999)
The All New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy in ’For Love or Mummy’ (1999)
Finding Forrester (2000)
I Cavalieri che fecero l’impresa (2001)
Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
Joshua (2002)
My Father, Rua Alguem 5555 (2003)
Piazza delle cinque lune (2003)
Peperoni ripieni e pesci in faccia (2004)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004)
Il Mercante di pietre (2006)
Quiet Flows the Don (2006)
The Inquiry (2006)
Wine and Kisses (2007)
Carnera: The Walking Mountain (2008)
Language of the Enemy (2008)
Barbarossa (2009)
Perestroika (2009)
The Unseen World (2010)