Lee: "There are many vampires in the world today... you only have to think of the film business."

Lee: "Making films has never just been a job to me; it is my life. I have some interests outside of acting - I sing and I've written books, for instance - but acting is what keeps me going: it's what I do; it gives life purpose."

Lee: "There is something sad about malevolence, to be wicked. I have always tried to make that come across in the villains I have played."

Lee: "Films are now made by accountants. They pick a pretty young female or male face out of the air and give them a part - not because they think that person is right for it or is ready for it, but because they think that person will make them money."

Lee: "We don't always get the kind of work we want, but we always have a choice of whether to do it with good grace or not."

Lee: "There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing."

Lee: "We don't live in a particularly attractive world. I don't really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world."

Lee: "I don't play long parts. They must be short parts, but they've got to be parts that mean something, that matter, where people will notice when I'm on the screen, and people will remember the character after they've seen the film."

Lee: "It's what you don't see that keeps you on the edge of your seat in any kind of film - leave it to the imagination of the viewer."

Lee: "I am never going to stop playing the villain. I would be foolish to do so because the audiences apparently enjoy watching me, and who am I to say no?"

Lee: "I thought that people should know about the dangers of Satanism, and diabolism does exist - there's no question about it."

Lee: "I lived for 10 years in Los Angeles, and the one element that surpasses everything else - that you are very conscious of - is fear. You can smell it."

Lee: "I'm much softer than people think. I don't present to the world an emotional face. I'm pretty good at self-control, but I am easily moved."

Lee: "My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often."

Lee: "Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them."

Lee: "There was a gap of seven years between the first and second Dracula movies. In the second one as everybody knows, I didn't speak, because I said I couldn't say the lines."

Lee: "The secret to a long marriage in the film industry? Marry someone wonderful, as I did. And always have her come along on location."

Lee: "When the Second World War finished, I was 23, and already I had seen enough horror to last me a lifetime. I'd seen dreadful, dreadful things, without saying a word. So seeing horror depicted on film doesn't affect me much."

Lee: "I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers."

Lee: "On the Italian side, we can trace the family back 2,000 years. I have a cousin in Rome, a famous archaeologist, Count Andrea Carandini, who was in Lombardy and came across some pottery with the original name of the family, Carandinus, painted on it."

Lee: "To be a legend, you've either got to be dead or excessively old!"