Eric McCormack Quotes

A character I would love to play is Iago, from Othello.

'Othello' was my first Shakespearean discovery. I was obsessed with drama at school, and I studied the play for my English GCSE. Desdemona is the part that everyone wants, but Iago's wife Emilia is the one I've always been drawn to.

'Othello' is the most domestic of Shakespeare's tragedies and the one that's likely to strike a personal note with a lot of people watching it.

I'd really like to play Lady Macbeth.

I think 'Macbeth' was a play that I've always gotten so much out of. My wife played Lady Macbeth in a play, and I designed it. There are things in there that are just kind of extraordinary.

No one's going to go see the story of Othello going to get a peaceful divorce.

Throughout my career, even as a very young actor, people have always said to me that they would like to see my Othello. They could see something of him in me, I suppose.

Shakespeare is all big themes, like the most amazing love, or the most scary war.

I think the first thing I did was several scenes from Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare wrote about love. I write about love. Shakespeare wrote about gang warfare, family feuds and revenge. I write about all the same things.

I've played Lear three times, I would love to do it again.

I was in a production of 'Macbeth.'

I saw 'Othello' at the National Theatre in London, and it was so stunning. I was so moved. It's beautiful.

I'd love to play Hamlet.

I don't think Othello is a jealous man - he is a man who has been deceived by another person, just as everybody in the play is deceived by that person... The playwright uses the word 'jealousy' over and over and over again, but I don't think it has anything to do with being jealous.

I would love to do Shakespeare, either onstage or on film.

I wish I'd played Coriolanus.

Usually, you see this play as a guy who can't make up his mind, but our version is more of a revenge thriller than a man who is pontificating what he should do next. I've never seen a 'Hamlet' this big, this exciting, with this many cast members; it's quite a spectacle.

The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies.

The tragedy of "Hamlet" is critically considered to be the masterpiece of dramatic poetry; and the tragedy of "Hamlet" is also, according to the testimony of every sort of manager, the play of all others which can invariably be depended on to fill a theater.

I've done classical theaters. I played Hamlet myself and Romeo.

Shakespeare's 'Othello' was inspired by Cinthio's 'A Moorish Captain'; his 'Hamlet' came from Saxo Grammaticus's 'Amleth.'

'Macbeth' is an amazing story.

I want to play Eva Peron. I've already done a lot of Shakespeare, but I'd like to do Lady Macbeth.

Someday I'd love to do Shakespeare.