Clash of the Titans (1981)

Maggie Smith: Thetis

Photos 

Quotes 

• Zeus : Perseus has won. My son has triumphed.

  Hera : A fortunate young man.

  Zeus : Fortune is ally to the brave.

  Thetis : What a dangerous precedent. What if there more heroes like him? What if courage and imagination became everyday mortal qualities? What will become of us?

  Zeus : We would no longer be needed. But, for the moment, there is sufficient cowardice, sloth and mendacity down there on Earth to last forever.

• Thetis : Hear me, vain and foolish mortal woman. You dare compare your daughter's beauty to mine and in my own sacred sanctuary? You will repent your boast and the cruel injury you have inflicted on my son, Calibos.

  Cassiopeia : Forgive. Forgive.

  Thetis : In 30 days, on the eve of the longest day of the year, your daughter Andromeda must be taken to the sacrificial rock at the edge of the sea, there bound and chained to the stone. She must be unknown to man, a virgin. A sacrifice suitable for the Kraken. She must be delivered to the Kraken at the setting of the sun or else the Kraken will destroy all Joppa and everyone within the city. For the insult you have done to me and the cruel injury inflicted on my son, I demand the life of Andromeda. In 30 days.

• [discussing Zeus' womanizing] 

  Thetis : So many women, and all these transformations and disguises he invents in order to seduce them. Sometimes a shower of gold, sometimes a bull or a swan. Why, once he even tried to ravish me disguised as a cuttlefish.

  Hera : Did he succeed?

  Thetis : Certainly not.

  Athena : What did you do?

  Thetis : Beat him at his own game. I simply turned myself into a shark.

  [they laugh] 

• Thetis : It is time for chance to intervene. Time you saw something of the world, Perseus. Time you came face to face with fear. Time to know the terrors of the dark and look on death. Time your eyes were opened to grim reality.

• Thetis : My priests of Joppa are loyal. I will speak to them in dreams and omens.