Klaus Kinski (1926 – 1991)
German actor, best remembered for his emotional outbursts and work with director Werner Herzog.
He’s putting his hand up my skirt. The night before he kept coming to my room, he came to my door, he came to my window, he tried to get in. One time he saw me, he stood up and said he was Nosferatu...anything to get me to open the window.
Steven Spielberg offers me a part in Raiders of the Lost Ark... But as much as I'd like to do a movie with Spielberg, the script is as moronically shitty as so many other flicks of this ilk. At the same time, Claude Lelouch is nagging me to do his Les Uns et les Autres (Bolero). I'd be willing to do this project, but not for the shabby pittance that this rat offers me.
He should be thrown alive to the crocodiles! An anaconda should strangle him slowly! A poisonous spider should sting him and paralyze his lungs! The most venomous serpent should bite him and make his brain explode! No — panther claws should rip open his throat — that would be much too good for him! Huge red ants should piss into his lying eyes and gobble up his balls and his guts! He should catch the plague! Syphilis! Yellow fever! Leprosy! It's no use; the more I wish him the most gruesome deaths, the more he haunts me.
Kinski's fits can be partly explained by his egocentric character. Egocentric is perhaps not the right word; he was an outright egomaniac. Whenever there was a serious accident, it became a big problem because, all of a sudden, he was no longer the centre of attention. He was no longer important.
People like Brando are just kindergarten compared to Kinski. He is totally mad and unpredictable. You can see something raging in this man. We liked each other, we hated each other and we respected each other, even though we hatched serious plots to murder each other.
My father loved us so much, but he's the kind of person that chokes you. He doesn't leave you your own pleasures. If you think or feel one way and he feels the other way, he won't accept it. My mother wanted to work. People wanted her to do movies, but he just wanted her to be at home, be a mother, be a wife, be this Venus, this planet he could land on anytime.
Just why are we so poor? Why can I never sleep at night? Because bombs keep dropping! Why does my mother have to torture herself like that? Why didn't anyone give my dad a break? Why is there a war? Why? Why? Why?
My father is so expressive that things he feels even before they are thoughts are visible on his skin. He heats up. What other people work on, he was born with. He's got eyes like the sky and like hell at the same time. They're so clear and blue and alert and serious, and then they're like hell. That's how he is. He is total light and pureness and then hell. He gives totally or he gives nothing. He is like the sun, then an iceberg, then nonexistent, and then the sun again. Which is fine. It's a lot better than most people are.
The truth is that I wasn't there with her when she needed me. Now she see's how I love Nanho? and she believes that I can't love her as much as I love my son. That I've never loved her like this. I try to tell her that she's distorting everything in her pain and not seeing the truth. That I've painfully missed her since our separation and that I've never stopped loving her. But even though she gradually calms down, I have a feeling she doesn't believe me.
The flamenco of the Gypsy has nothing to do with the flamenco for tourists. Real flamenco is like sex.
Not only is she obsessed with fur, she also collects clothes, houses, land, islands, and, above all, diamonds. Lots of diamonds. Big ones. The biggest are the size of pigeon eggs, and she's already wearing them for breakfast. I feel sorry for her. She'd give it all up just to be a couple of years younger.
I want to be free, independent. Free of all coercion. Free of any need to rely on other people. I have no credit cards, nor do I want any. I toss the cash on the table. I leave others in peace and I want to be left in peace. I spend my nights sleeping on the ground in the forest. I embrace trees as I have done all my life. I smell their bark and kiss it. I lay my face on the moss and breathe in the spicy aroma of fruitfulness as if I were lying on a woman's belly.
The jungle is life itself. A thousand times more alive than anything you've ever seen. We didn't go there to be a part of it. We invaded it. We shaved the jungle and made a stinking camp in the middle of it. Radios blaring. It was disgusting.
Words. Words today block meanings. Words are losing their value these days. People don't communicate what they mean. If someone tells me "This coffee is genius," what does that mean? This is shit. If this coffee is genius, then what does "genius" mean anymore? I don't believe in words anymore. "Have a coke and a smile." I have a coke and it hurts my stomach. I become sick.
I don't care about that scum! Why should I receive a prize? I know that I'm a genius!
The funny thing about Klaus Kinski is that for all the bravado he’s just a scared little man. All you have to do is stand up to him. Herzog knew and I knew that, too. He wasn’t a bad person, he’s just so self-centered. Everything was his way or the highway.
Here is this man, Kinski, and you have to put him on the screen. You have to take all his rage, all his intensity, all his demonic qualities, and make them productive for the screen. That was the task and there was no time for learning. I had to master the situation from day one, from the first day of shooting Aguirre. On set you have no choice. I had to be strong enough to shape him and force him to the utmost, beyond the limits of what is normally required for the shooting of a film. But he would push me equally-to the limit. It was not permissible to take even a little step back from his level of intensity and professionalism. And, of course, he literally would have been ready to die with me, if I had died on the ship in the rapids. He would have sunk in the ship with me, and vice versa. But I cannot deny that there were moments, which were dangerous, when we could have killed each other.
I don't know how this will end. All I know is Nanho?'s love. My son is my life. I believe in the magic of this love. He is the embodiment of life to me. The embodiment of beauty. Through him I'll find redemption and salvation. Then the wound in my soul - the wound I thought would never scar over - will stop bleeding. I thought I would have to tear it open once it began to heal. Back then, when I felt I couldn't stop being what is called an actor, when I told myself I was only doing it for the money and that it could be worse. Now, today, I'd rather be poor, but without nightmares and without the torture. If only I could! I wish I'd never been an actor! I wish I'd never had success! I'd rather have been a streetwalker, selling my body, than selling my tears and my laughter, my grief and joy.
At sixteen I get drafted. When I read the draft notice, I cry. Not because I'm a coward - I'm not afraid of anyone. But I don't want to kill or be killed.
He's a highly talented guy. He does very good movies and he's not the sort of person who always talks bullshit. He does many, many things right. But he's also sick. Obsessed. He wants to make history, not movies. Anyone who wants to make history is stupid.