William Shakespeare Quotes

When we play the fool, how wideThe theatre expands! beside,How long the audience sits before us!How many prompters! what a chorus!

Actors are the jockeys of literature. Others supply the horses, the plays, and we simply make them run.

Gemma Arterton in 'The Master Builder' at the Almeida - she was absolutely brilliant. Ibsen is difficult and quite hard to follow, but she just brings the stage to life.

I think acting is an important profession, because acting can give you pleasure and can teach you at the same time, and that is a good thing.

The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.

The play is the source, it is orchestrated with words. In a movie, you are not dealing with as much as that. There are machines and wires. When you're acting for a camera, it keeps taking and never giving back.

All the world's a stage.

I've been on the stage my entire life as an actor.

I have lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I found purpose and meaning in your response.

I'd like to continue to play until I drop dead on stage or something.

We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.

As far as I'm concerned all theatre is physical. As Aristotle says, you know, theatre is an act and an action, and he didn't mean just the writing of it, he meant that at the centre of any piece there is an action, a physical action.

It's a little bit odd. The first time you do the play, you kind of throw yourself into it, trying to get the most out of all the individual moments. Then, a few hours later, you're still there, wondering what you could possibly do differently than what you just did a couple hours ago.

Acting has been described as farting about in disguise.

Theatre is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human enough to talk and shout, weep and despair

I played Thersites and I remember we were also doing some places out of town before starting our run at The Old Vic in London and we were at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford and I walked on stage and I've got an opening speech that begins: "Agamemnon, how if he had boils?" And I went on and said: "Agamemnon..." And a woman in the front row just went 'tut'. I thought: "I've only done four syllables, give us a chance!" I got one word out and the audience were already tutting. It was worse than any heckle I ever had doing comedy. So, I'll stick to gnomes.

I am a little crazy but when I'm on-stage, then I really get to play it up and perform and be over the top and it's like an outlet. It's fun to 'wild' out.

It was quite strange, because it's quite different from singing, although it's quite natural because you're used to performing or acting on stage.

I love musicals, I started acting because I wanted to be in a musical.

I would say I am more concerned with the plays I'm going to do than the movies. I'm more comfortable in a play. In film, there's always a certain sense of control, of holding back. The stage is different ; there's more to act. There are more demands put on you, more experiences to go through.

I discovered I loved acting at a Summer Camp. That's when I really realised that I enjoyed it and that I wanted to try it.

In terms of trying to improve as an actor, for me it's always important to return to the stage. After doing a piece of theater for a prolonged period, I can think I must have surely improved in some way as an actor - you must be fitter than you were prior to doing it. For me, theater is very, very important in keeping things fresh and dangerous.

I don't go out much to see bands. I prefer to be on stage.

If you're an actor, a real actor, you've got to be on the stage. But you mustn't go on the stage unless it's absolutely the only thing you can do.