Marlon Brando - biography

“Acting is just hustling.  Some people are hustling money, some power.  I don’t put it down.  But I resent people putting it up.”

“Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse.  It’s a bum’s life.  Quitting acting, that’s the sign of maturity.”

“Acting, in general, is something most people think they’re incapable of but they do it from morning to night.  The subtlest acting I’ve ever seen is by ordinary people trying to show they feel something they don’t or trying to hide something.  It’s something everyone learns at an early age.”

“An actor is at most a poet and at least an entertainer.”

“An actor’s a guy who, if you ain’t talking about him, ain’t listening.”

“I did it once.  It was an ass breaker.”

“If an actor can’t improvise, perhaps the producer’s wife cast him in that part.”

“If there’s anything unsettling to the stomach, it’s watching actors on television talk about their personal lives.”

“In your heart of hearts, you know perfectly well that movie starts aren’t artists.  Shakespeare said: There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.”

“The only thing an actor owes his public is not to bore them.”

“To grasp the full significance of life is the actor’s duty, to interpret it is his problem, and to express it his dedication.”

“You direct yourself in most films, anyway.”

“[Frank Sinatra]’s the kind of guy that when he dies, he gives God a bad time for making him bald.”

“There’s no culture in this country.”

“The last great artists died maybe a hundred years ago.  In any field.”

“I don’t believe in awards of any kind.  I don’t believe in the Nobel Peace Prize.”

“Comics are famously tragic people.”

“Kafka and Kierkegaard are remarkable souls.  They visited distant planets of the psyche that no other writers dared before - to some people they were the heroes, not Elvis Presley.”

“A cultural boneyard.”

“I notice that the width of a Hollywood smile in my direction is commensurate with how much my last picture grossed.”

“The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money.”

“Surely, life is about something other than reading books about yourself.”

“There’s a line in the picture where he snarls, ‘Nobody tells me what to do.’ That’s exactly how I’ve felt all my life.”

“I could’ve made more money if I’d sold torn T-shirts with my name one them.  The Brando T-shirt would’ve sold a million.”

“I don’t mind that I’m fat.  You still get the same money.”

“There’s a tendency for people to mythologize everybody evil or good.  Elvis Presley - bloated, over the hill, adolescent entertainer drawing people to Las Vagas - has nothing to do with excellence, just myth.”

“We should really call all politicians actors.”

“I’m not going to place myself at the feet of the American public and invite them into my soul.  My soul is a private place.”

“Privacy is not something that I’m merely entitled to, it’s an absolute prerequisite.”

“Our relationship with the [Native American] Indians is unprecedented in history.  No group of people has ever so consciously and cruelly suppressed another group as Americans have the Indians.”

“Never confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.”

“With women, I’ve got a long bamboo pole with a leather loop on the end.  I slip the loop around their necks so they can’t get away or come too close.  Like catching snakes.”

“I have eyes like those of a dead pig.”

“If we are not our brother’s keeper, at least let us not be his executioner.”

“If you want something from an audience, you give blood to their fantasies.  It’s the ultimate hustle.”

Marlon Brando has appeared in the following films:
The Men (1950)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Viva Zapata! (1952)
Julius Caesar (1953)
The Wild One (1953)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Desirée (1954)
Guys and Dolls (1955)
The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
Sayonara (1957)
The Young Lions (1958)
The Fugitive Kind (1960)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)
The Ugly American (1963)
Bedtime Story (1964)
Morituri (1965)
The Chase (1966)
The Appaloosa (1966)
A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
Woman Times Seven (1967)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Candy (1968)
The Night of the Following Day (1968)
Queimada (1969)
King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (1970)
The Nightcomers (1971)
The Godfather (1972)
Last Tango in Paris (1972)
The Missouri Breaks (1976)
Superman (1978)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Formula (1980)
A Dry White Season (1989)
The Freshman (1990)
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)
Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
The Brave (1997)
Free Money (1998)
The Score (2001)
Superman Returns (2006)