Jeremy Irons Quotes

I think I actually did a production of "Under Milkwood," this Welsh play, with my drama group (at school), and I always remember taking everything far too seriously, and that it wasn't just a hobby but something I wanted to keep on doing.

I started out doing a lot of theater, a lot of Shakespeare, classic plays.

I was thrown into a community production of 'Bye Bye Birdie' or something when I was a kid. I wanted to just build the sets, but I wasn't allowed to just build the sets unless I auditioned for the play. So I auditioned for the play and was thrown into the chorus. During the course of that I fell in love with it, and I never really turned back.

I would really love theater. I would love to do Shakespeare, that would be amazing. You know, it's whatever really comes my way.

Playing Sgt, Trotter in 'The Mousetrap' is the same as playing Scripps in 'The History Boys,' in the sense that they're dream roles that I've always wanted to do. The fact they're letting me do this professionally and I'm getting paid for it, I find astonishing.

I fell in love with acting at around the age of 11, when I was drafted in to play a fairy at an amateur production of 'Midsummer Night's Dream.'

Stage performing is a dying art form.

I knew real show business from my father, who had been an actor since he left the world of boxing.

Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.

Doing Shakespeare on stage with Kenneth Branagh, I don't think it gets better than that.

I love writing plays because they are living, fluid things that are energised by the producer, designers, musicians, actors and audience.

The first drama thing I really got stuck into was 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' I played Puck. That's when I said, 'I want to be an actor.'

With Shakespeare, because you invest so much time in working on material, it always sort of stays with you to some degree.

You hear about Broadway your whole life, and I learned what it meant to work on Broadway in 'The Phantom of the Opera.'

I actually want to do a theatrical adaptation of 'Hateful Eight' because I actually like the idea of other actors having a chance to play my characters and see what happens from that.

I've directed 'Raisin in the Sun' five times. You keep discovering things. You keep on seeing things in the script that you never saw before. That's what great pieces of art do.

I love live theatre, it's always thrilling and exciting.

My first visit to Lucknow was perhaps in 1995-96. I was then working with theatre director Ranjit Kapur on the production of 'Court Martial' and we travelled to Lucknow on assignment.

I didn't do any designs for 'My Fair Lady.'

I had been in 760 performances of 10 different Shakespeare plays by the time I was 17.

The only way to see the value of a play is to see it acted.

I've always said I prefer theater, but there's only ever been one play that I really loved doing, and that was The Seagull.

A musical is the same as a burlap sack, I would not want to be in either

You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?

A play for me never really takes on an aspect of reality until it has left the dryair of the study and begins to sniff the musty breezes of a bare stage.