Bob Hoskins: his career in (foul-mouthed) quotes

Sadly Bob Hoskins is retiring from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

It brings the curtain down on a memorable and varied career, which saw him play nutty gangsters ('The Long Good Friday'), intergalactic plumbers ('Super Mario Bros.') and a bloke who thinks "it's good to talk" (the annoying BT ads).

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His retirement will also mean less publicity interviews, which is a shame, as he's one of the most honest, foul-mouthed and entertaining film stars out there. Here's a whistle-stop tour through Bob Hoskins' career with quotes from the man himself.

On the nudity in 'Pennies From Heaven'

"Piers Haggard, the director, asked me to take me clothes off - I come home, take me clothes off, put me pyjamas on and go to bed. But he says, 'I want full frontal.' Well, Bill Cotton [then controller of BBC1] went f**kin' bananas. 'We can't have that,' he says, 'If you show Hoskins' c**k on the television we will get letters of complaint.' Dennis [Potter, the show's writer], without a beat, says, 'No Bill, you'll get letters of sympathy.'

On 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'

"It really is a barmy, awful experience. Everything is blue. Things start to lose their meaning. On 'Roger Rabbit' I'd go out and see weasels pulling people's hair - you really start to hallucinate to make it all work. I thought I was going mad, going f**king potty."

On the set of 'Hook'

"We had Dustin [Hoffman] on the set apologising for making 'Ishtar'. And [Steven] Spielberg apologising for '1941' and Robin Williams jumping in and saying: 'I apologise for 'Cadillac Man'. I was sitting there and shouted 'Well, I apologise for f**king nothing!'"

On 'Super Mario Bros.'

"The worst thing I ever did? 'Super Mario Bros.' It was a f**kin' nightmare. The whole experience was a nightmare. It had a husband-and-wife team directing, whose arrogance had been mistaken for talent. After so many weeks, their own agent told them to get off the set! F**kin' nightmare. F**kin' idiots."

On whether he'd do the BT ads again

"You're joking, intcha? I couldn't believe it. It was un-be-lie-va-ble. The worst thing that happened to me was Madonna getting stalked by a fella called Bob Hoskins, and I had f*ckin' hundreds of people come up to me, and say 'It's good to stalk.' B*stards! Hahaha!"

On the acting profession

"Actors are just entertainers, even the serious ones. That's all an actor is. He's like a serious Bruce Forsyth."

On method acting

"B*llocks. Total cobblers!"

On picking his roles

"When you get to my age, what you want is the cameo. You get paid a lot of money. You fly in for a couple of weeks. Everybody treats you like the crown jewels. It's all great and if the film turns out to be a load of s**t, nobody blames you."

On his sex appeal

"I'm Winnie the Pooh - that's as sexy as I am. I meet ladies and they talk about their family and I talk about my family. It's about as sexy as a bag of Brussel sprouts."

On what he'd do if he wasn't an actor

"Probably rob banks."

Sources: The Guardian, The Telegraph, IMDB, Dougie Thompson.com