Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It's a vain craft, acting.
I love to see people blossom.
I just do what I'm asked, really.
Exercising choice is a good thing.
In Tom Cone's work nothing is easy.
I've been with Shakespeare all my life.
Even Shakespeare gives you a scene off.
Arthur Winslow is one of the great parts.
Daring to love someone is something we all do.
Anything I do is as theatrical as I can get it.
I like working with authors who are a bit pesky.
If you live in the States, you have to join a gym.
I do one thing Gielgud didn't: I play the ukulele.
My neighborhood in South London was very Dickensian.
Television is an important part of how we communicate.
If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing sitcoms.
Nothing in the world in perfect. Even a still photograph.
I usually played comic lovers or losers - weak, ineffectual men.
It doesn't seem Shakespeare works if you turn him into a religion.
I thought acting was just going on and remembering all of one's lines.
Most of my enjoyable times in the theater have been working in a group.
I was at a pretty rough school, and the only thing I was good at was art.
The classical actor in England makes roughly the equivalent of a bus driver.
In the Victorian age, actors played Romeo until they were 60 or 70 years old.
More people saw me in one episode of 'Cheers' than would ever see me in a play.
I've learned from the greatest people, and I've got wonderful things to pass on.
I've often thought I'm a short music hall comedian stuck in a leading man's body.
That's been the tragedy of my life, actually. I've always looked younger than I am.
I think like an actor when I'm acting, and I think like a director when I'm directing.
There's something very fine and lucid and rich in this tradition of the English actor.
So, suddenly I was an actor. I don't remember being nervous. I learned to be nervous later.
I used to be the voice of Virgin Atlantic in America, and some people only know me for that.
After I left the R.S.C., I did a musical, 'Masquerade,' where I played a rabbit. I was the lead.
No lens is quick enough to track the movement of the human body. The molecules are always moving.
I like to do really good things. But 'good' - witness Charles Dickens - doesn't mean 'not popular.'
If you take away a lot of the pretension and grandness from Shakespeare, a true poeticism is revealed.
You may be modest and un-egotistical in your life; I'm quite ordinary. But I play big egotistical parts.
Sometimes the most excruciating experiences in rehearsals and performances yield the most beautiful work.
Everything happens every night for this audience, and it's a very special occasion to come to the theatre.
I was really serious about painting, so I could never be a Sunday painter. You can't just switch it on and off.
Now, when I talk about Shakespeare, I can't talk too much about Gielgud or Olivier. Because nobody knows who I'm talking about.
The Elizabethan mind wanted and demanded that one word could mean 50 things. What Shakespeare offers us is not ambiguity; it's choices.
Now, of course, we know there has been an end to apartheid in South Africa, but what excited me was seeing it in the context of history.
The hard thing is making sure you work with wonderful people and that you get something out of it so that you can get better as an actor.
The shields were enormous. In 'Julius Caesar,' I died early in the scene and used to fall asleep under the shield until I was woken up by applause.
I've always thought like I'm really a 3-feet-high comic trapped in a leading man's body... but then I played Nicholas Nickleby, and suddenly I was heroic.
Mostly, theater becomes blander and blander as everyone wants the same thing they saw before. The good plays are the ones that don't allow you to do that.
I love to argue and share bright ideas in a rehearsal room, and when you live with somebody who is working on the same show, the delight can go on all evening!
Well-written plays deserve to be learned from and understood properly, both by actors and audiences alike, and Rattigan's very human characters help us do that.
Gerry Schoenfeld told me 'Les Parents Terribles' was not going to sell, even though we had Kathleen Turner and Jude Law in the cast. So we called it 'Indiscretions.'