Simon Callow Quotes

You know, I don't think you need to be educated to be a great actor.

As a young performer, I didn't know that you can have a great time playing someone in terrible crisis. The more you know it's not real, the deeper you can go into it. And the easier it is to let it go when it's done.

I never pretended to be a great actor.

The secret of being a great actor is a love of food.

To be a great actor, you really don't need to go to acting school or learn dance classes or work on your body. You have to be intelligent. You have to draw on a lot of emotions that you go through in life that you can tap into once you work on a set.

A really great actor, in a lucky performance, can transform himself or herself. I've seen actors do that. But often it's a mechanical transformation, which isn't as interesting, and you've got to be careful how you go about something like that, I think.

Only a great actor finds the difficulties of the actor's art infinite.

It's easier to see in someone else, another actor, how they kind of disappear and then this other persona appears. A great actor is a thing of mystery.

The great lesson in theatre is that you live the story every night, and that is a wonderful vehicle for getting to the richest places in a performance or investing a character with the richest life.

I don't have a great instrument. I don't have the kind of ungodly control over my voice and body that great actors have. And I've worked with enough great actors to know that I'm not one.

When I see an emotion being enacted by a great actor, I always feel I can never do that.

I think Nat's an amazing actor... He understands things about acting that most people don't.

I think an actor without life experiences is empty.

Emotional power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.

Working with a great actor is really educational.

The difference between great actors and the rest of us isn't simply that they know how to make more out of less, but that, like lions at the watering hole, they will always take more than their share from the pool of available resources - extra air from the room, added knowledge from our faces.

As an actor, our very palette is one of imagination. So it is a walk onto an empty space and then imagine the world beyond it is what we do.

As an actor, you need everything you can get to be truly scary and truly memorable.

I would absolutely recommend for actors to start in the theater because it establishes a foundation in your craft that you can build off of.

An actor matures with experiences, and the more the emotions he/she has been through, the greater the intensity of performances.

When I went to acting school, the kids that got the best grades were the kids that could cry on cue. But it didn't really translate into careers for any of them, because the external is the easy part.

The imagination is part of the arsenal that actors draw from.

If you got a good imagination, a lot of confidence and you kind of know what you are saying, then you might be able to do it. I know a lot of colorful characters at home that would make great actors.

The trick to acting is not to show off; it's to think the thoughts of the character. I was lucky because when I started acting, it was doing jobs above pubs. I learned to act in anonymity, so by the time people saw me, I knew what I was doing. I was crap for years, but no one saw me being crap. It's a trade you learn.

Like any other actor, I draw on life experience.