Charlton Heston as Moses: 7 Quotes About Iconic Role

The is no film in the illustrious 60-year, 100-plus-film career of Hollywood legend Charlton Heston that better illustrates his influence on the industry than the 1956 masterpiece “The Ten Commandments.”

After a decade of building momentum in smaller movie roles as well as on TV, Charlton Heston’s role as Moses fortified the actor in ways that helped define his long career.

The role thrust him into leading man territory. Moses helped the actor build the Judeo-Christian, middle-American base that supported him at every step and also propelled him into subsequent roles in “Ben Hur,” “El Cid,” and “Planet of the Apes,” as well as roles that followed.

Though not his favorite role personally (he reportedly preferred himself in the 1948 play “Mr. Roberts” based on the Thomas Heggen novel, as well as the 1968 Western “Will Penny”), Heston as Moses will forever be considered one of his defining roles.

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“The Ten Commandments” was Heston’s arrival as an actor and helped define and elevate his career to what it soon became.

Here are seven quotes about Heston’s most famous role:

1. “Heston made at least three movies that almost everybody eventually sees: ‘Ben-Hur’, ‘The Ten Commandments’, and ‘Planet of the Apes.’”
– Roger Ebert

2. “You can’t out-Charlton Heston Heston.”
– Christian Bale, who portrayed Moses in the 2014 film "Exodus: Gods and Kings," to Variety

3. “That's a remarkably big story, but the personal story is very small. It's about one man who loses his family, ends up becoming a slave in the galleys, and then makes this huge transformation. It isn't overtly stated, but I think he becomes one of the first Christians. I think that's really what that film is about.”
– Fraser Heston, on his father in “The Ten Commandments” to Christianity Today

4. “Many of us have had the great fortune to experience the artistry and power of Charlton Heston.”
– Forbes contributor Larry Bell, on meeting Heston

5. “No list of Jewish movie characters would be complete without Charlton Heston's take on Moses.”
– Complex Media's list of "The 25 Greatest Jewish Characters in Movies

6. “Mr. Heston became a marquee name. Whether leading the Israelites through the wilderness, parting the Red Sea or coming down from Mount Sinai with the tablets from God in hand, he was a Moses to remember.”
– Robert Berkvist, in The New York Times

7. “We could use a Moses like Charlton Heston again.”
– PJ Media critic Ed Driscoll, on the recent biblical movie, “Exodus: Gods and Kings”

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