Tobias Menzies Quotes

Feelings are universal, and if an actor's doing his job, I think he's making people sit there, and if it's in a movie or a theatre, going 'Hmm, yeah, I know that... I know that.'

That, for me, actually is the most important thing about doing a period film is trying to make these people as lovable as they are back then.

A lot of the emotions we portray are universal themes that resonate with everyone, so the fact that people feel invested in our partnership is truly remarkable.

Why I talked about political correctness: the colonial is now such a major taboo that any achievement of the colonial period, or any generosity implied in colonialism, is again fundamentally neglected or fundamentally not recognised. That's crazy, because history is a series of layers, and you cannot say, "This layer I support and this layer I cancel." History is history and you cannot retrospectively manipulate it.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

Movies that encourage empathy are more effective than those that objectify problems.

If history starts as a guest list, it has a tendency to end like the memory of a drunken party: misheard, blurred, fragmentary.

Any child knows that history can only be a reduced representation of reality, but it must be a true one, not distorted by queer lenses.

I find that the history books that we teach our kids with are not fully truthful, in my opinion.

Everything in 'The Tudors' is initially based on my historical research, and the fact is that the most unlikely scenes were the ones which were probably most based on reality. I prefer to be as real as possible, and there is so much of that story that you just can't make up.

There's no hierarchy in suffering. I think songs that are transcendent are the ones where everyone can feel something from it, you know?

When you think of how history is revealed, we know certain things to be facts at certain periods of time, which turn out not to be so factual as time marches on.

If people really want to know and learn from history, why do they want bad history? Why don't they want good history? Wouldn't you rather know the truth, rather than the legend?

That's what was so amazing about 'Mulan.' Here is this story with all Chinese characters, and yet so many people related to her character and loved the story. So I really think as long as you have a good story that relates to a lot of people, it doesn't matter what ethnicity it is.

We often do not get the first draft of history right.

Learning from history is impossible if the narrative is wrong.

I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.

As a historian, I've spent much of my career warning people about the dangers of nostalgia.

I think every time I can find a story that touches that human nerve, and even sometimes makes you cry, I think that I've found something that I'll like very much.

If you're writing something that's clearly labelled as an alternative history, of course it's perfectly legitimate to play with known historical characters and events, but less so when you're writing an essentially straight historical fiction.

The audience will show up if you have authenticity. Like 'Moonlight,' there was stuff in there that is so specific to that community where the filmmakers grew up. Even if I don't understand everything they're talking about, I will love it if I feel that it's real.

That's the power of film. If it's good, it can somehow make you feel connected to even the farthest thing from your own experience.

In New York, a 13-year-old Indian girl came up to me crying, saying to everyone nearby, 'This is where I come from.' It's easy to forget that actors have the ability to instill a sense of self in viewers. That's the greatest compliment.

If you really think about it, if we begin to teach history exactly the way that it happened - good, bad, ugly, no matter what - I believe that we're going to find that we are closer, more connected than we are apart.

Hopefully, somebody who's hearing my music, it's relatable to them, and it strikes a cord with them.