Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Unless we tell stories about ourselves, which is all that theater is, we're in deep trouble.
My parents certainly didn't have anything to do with the theater. I'm some kind of accident.
What's interesting about the process of acting is how often you don't know what you're doing.
It's a nightmare to sit and watch a film that I'm in. There's a horrible inescapability to it.
Nothing gives me as much pleasure as travelling. I love getting on trains and boats and planes.
Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.
I'm a lot less serious than people think, it's probably because the way my face is put together.
I knew with Snape I was working as a double agent, as it turns out, and a very good one at that.
Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.
It is an ancient need to be told stories. But the story needs a great storyteller. Thanks for all of it, Jo.
Being on the stage in New York is always exciting because you feel like you're part of the life of the city.
You know, London is so sprawling, and you can sometimes forget that anybody else is on a stage anywhere else.
I have this feeling that if I could sort out what's on my dining room table, everything would fall into place.
You try to find things that are challenging and interesting and hopefully it will be the same to the audience.
I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word: a journey.
Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you - almost seems to speak through you, in fact.
England in the '60s and the '70s was everything that history has said; it was phenomenally exciting, musically.
Why don't I like you?" "Because you think I'm an asshole, and I'm not really, I'm just British and, well, you're not.
The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.
That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.
The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'
From my experience, I think that every actor has to make sure that they're in charge of their own career somehow or other.
I suppose with any good writing and interesting characters, you can have that awfully overused word [...] - a jouuuuuurney.
I have just returned from the dubbing studio where I spoke into a microphone as Severus Snape for absolutely the last time.
Originally, theater was my life. It was what I assumed I'd spend my working life doing - if I was lucky. Then along came movies.
Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.
I mean, language fascinates me anyway, and different words have different energies and you can change the whole drive of a sentence.
I'm still living the life where you get home and open the fridge and there's half a pot of yogurt and a half a can of flat Coca-Cola.
I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.
Any actor who judges his character is a fool - for every role you play you've got to absorb that character's motives and justifications.
A lot of the time I hate the theater. You think, 'I have to climb Mount Everest, again, tonight.' Oh, the theater is a scary place to be.
I am hellbent on defying your expectations, at every turn, and even if you don't like what's being done, I dare you to find it uninteresting.
Acting is mostly about listening. If you just focus in on what the other person is saying, acting takes care of itself to quite a large extent.
Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.
I'm very aware that when one is acting in the theater, you do become kind of animal about it. And you're reliant on instincts rather than tact a lot of the time.
I've learned, having been on a lot of sets, the good news is that by definition you are surrounded by experts. They get fired if they're not - unlike in the theatre!
In theater, you've got to be aware of your whole body because it involves stamina. It involves two-and-a-half hours and a sustained release of energy, maybe for six months.
I never talk about 'Harry Potter' because I think that would rob children of something that's private to them. I think too many things get explained, so I hate talking about it.
Los Angeles is not a town full of airheads. There's a great deal of wonderful energy there. They say 'yes' to things; not like the endless 'nos' and 'hrrumphs' you get in England!
I was coming from a very cerebral, dark, difficult, layered play by Christopher Hampton and doing an action movie in Hollywood (Die Hard) with explosions, and I was holding a gun.
I love perfumes. Every morning when my girlfriend and I come down to the courtyard in our block of flats we're assailed by the most delicious scent - jasmine round a doorway. It almost makes me swoon.
I approach every part I'm asked to do and decide to do from exactly the same angle: who is this person, what does he want, how does he attempt to get it, and what happens to him when he doesn't get it, or if he does?
The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda.
The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible. Or, what's impossible? What's a fantasy?
And it's a human need to be told stories. The more we're governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.
You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don't -- You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking that was nice...now where's the cab?'
Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And there's a whole bunch of teenagers who only want to talk about 'Dogma.'
Older people say, 'Oh I loved you in 'Sense and Sensibility,'' and that's the only film they want to talk about. Equally, there are people who only want to talk about 'Galaxy Quest.' And there's a whole bunch of teenagers who only want to talk about 'Dogma.'
One thing I will say - my job gets harder and harder. The more you understand about what you are capable of, the less the instrument can do it physically. It's an inverse equation, if that's the right phrase. I just slammed those two words together. It sounded right.
On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.