Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I want to play King Lear, Macbeth, Benedict, Coriolanus. I wouldn't mind doing Hamlet again. Well, I'm a little old. Perhaps I can rub Vaseline on the audience's eyes.
'Nicholas Nickleby' is 800 pages long. At one time, the theater production was 15 hours long. So it's an interesting process, about what you leave out and what you select.
You got paid on Friday, go for a late-night poker game, and have no money on Saturday. But the RSC took your rent out of the paycheck, so at least you had a place to sleep.
I'm astonished to say, but people are really pleased to hear what happened to me, the way I got a little bit more confident, the people I've met, and the things I didn't know.
I directed Bebe Neuwirth in 'Here Lies Jenny' at the Post Street Theatre. I was gobsmacked - the audiences were extremely knowledgeable, affectionate, interested, and not cynical.
I joined the Royal Shakespeare Co. with no experience whatsoever - I'd never been to a drama school or anything. But I was strong and could lift things, I could move scenery about.
You might be the best Hamlet of your generation in the bathroom, but unfortunately, you have to come out and do it on stage, and it's best to do it to people who would fill the house.
They said my voice was terrible, nervous, and spotty and that I must go away and learn how to use it properly. I must admit I was rather agape, since I had never thought about making my voice better.
I don't think perfection is possible. I think you can attempt to reach perfection, but I don't think it's a possible thing. I think perfection is a moving point, and we spend our artistic lives chasing it.
The loser, the fool, is embraced in England because there is a recognition of silliness there that allows a person to keep his ambitions and desires at a certain distance. Just being in the race is enough.
I was an art student when I was a boy, and as an art student you don't have to talk to anyone - you just have to paint really wonderful paintings. It's very unlike being an actor, where you have to talk all the time.
'Waiting for Godot,' when it first came out in 1950, was a very different sort of play to the plays that were in the West End at that time in London, because most of those plays were what we call drawing-room comedies.
People very often say to actors that they admire their careers, and I rather think that what's implied by that is that we have a choice in the matter. When really, most actors, me included, do whatever comes along next.
We did a black 'Julius Caesar' in which the predominant accent was Caribbean. This offends many people, you know. I also had a Chinese Marc Anthony. I also managed - this caused a great shock - I also got some white guys in it as well!
I got out of this school and went to Camberwell College of Arts, a terribly prestigious thing to do. I was there to be a painter. And I sketched so well that, a year later, I was sent to Slade School of Fine Art, one of the great art schools.
'Merry Wives of Windsor' is a wonderful machine. It's one of the great farces, and it's astonishing to remember that this is written by the same man who wrote 'Hamlet,' 'The Taming of the Shrew' or 'Cymbeline.' It's so similar, and yet the form is so different.
My first acquaintance with 'Peter Pan' was back when I lived in South London. I was at art school, and I needed to earn money, so I got a job as a stagehand at the Wimbledon Theatre, and 'Peter Pan' was on tour there with Donald Sinden, who was playing Captain Hook.
Some of the finest Shakespeare has been done recently by college theater programs. I'll tell you what these young kids have: They have a natural authority in Shakespeare. They feel a right to do it. And once they honor the humanity of it, the rhythm of the verse comes with it.
When it was announced I had won the Tony Award, I was in Bangkok doing a movie with Judi Dench. I remember coming back from the location to the Oriental Hotel and hearing someone yelling across the reception area, 'You've won the Tony!' It was wonderful and strange to be halfway around the world.
'Nicholas Nickleby' was the best example, where 43 people could make an audience of 1,500 look at a fingernail at any given moment. It was so controlled, and yet it was a group of disparate individuals. It was a happy, constructive time, and it seemed to be an active discussion of what makes the theater work.
What I strive to do is to make the theater experience something that people remember and recall rather than dismiss because it was less like their everyday experiences. So, I'm less interested in internal emotionalism and much more in making the audience laugh and cry by the devices that we use as theater actors.
I have a little studio in Chinatown, and I sometimes go there and rearrange my brushes. But I would have to stop acting altogether in order to become a painter. At the moment, I'm still interested and active as an actor and director. Besides, I rather think acting and painting are all part of the same creative urge.
Rattigan's world demanded unwavering trust in principles, loyalty, and virtue. At the time of this play - Rattigan was writing this play in 1947 about an incident that took place in 1914 - should a boy say he didn't do something, his father would believe him; a British father would take the defense of his son's honor to his grave.