Brenda Blethyn Quotes

And my father, being a good Swiss puritan, always really insisted that if I was going to be an actor, I shouldn't just be an actor, I should know about the whole process.

I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.

Because I'd done 30 plays or so at Oxford, I thought that I was an actress anyway because that's what I was doing!

I've been very fortunate that I've worked since I left drama school in 1976.

When I decided I wanted to go to drama school, I realized that a lot of the actors whose careers I really admire and whose work I really admire were English and English trained. I felt there was a real vocational feel to work in the U.K.

Right after I left drama school, I had a job.

I worked consistently on Broadway from when I was 8 years old through 'Spring Awakening,' which I left in 2008.

When I got into drama school, that's when I knew that I could safely say that I wanted to be a professional actor.

I went to Northampton College of Further Education. I left there - when I was 16, I left Kingsthorpe Upper - and I went and did a diploma in performing arts, so it was my start in the training process to becoming an actor.

Although I have been doing plays since I was 8 years old, it was only when I started doing Shakespeare at age 19 at the Georgia Shakespeare Festival that I felt like my career started.

After a two-year stint at Cheek by Jowl theatre company in London, I put all my energies into breaking into New York's theatre scene. It took me eight years to build enough to play lead roles.

I thought I'd be doing weird, Off Broadway theater after I graduated.

I left drama school in the early '50s.

Young actors ask me for advice. They say, 'Should I get an agent?' I tell them, 'Don't worry about that. Act, act, act. Get into that production of 'The Three Sisters' in a church basement. Consider every audition a chance to act, even if it's just for three minutes. Just do it whenever and wherever you can.'

I wanted to go to drama school, but when I got the part in 'Falling,' I got an agent, so it seemed a good idea to work. I always did a lot of singing and dancing, so I am glad it worked out that way. I would like to study stage acting at some point, though.

There are lots of people in the world who do have the advantage of going to a good drama school and just decide that they want to be actors. There's nothing wrong with an untrained actor; they have to get their training somehow, they have to learn.

Yes, I was actually an acting teacher for a while.

When I first got out of drama school, my original manager tried to get me to change my name because people were having trouble spelling it and saying it.

I never saw myself as being a cop on TV. I come from theatre, and I always go back every couple of years.

I was trained on stage at NYU in New York City; I did a lot of theatre then.

I've acted professionally since I was 16.

The mistake people that want to be actors make is to move to New York or L.A. right away. But it's like... go act somewhere first. Be an actor. A story is a story, and an audience is an audience, no matter where you're doing it.

I would tell anyone who wanted to be an actor not to bother with drama school.

I studied drama in high school, and when I was 18, I studied at the Actors Studio in New York. Then I moved to London when I got engaged to Bryan Ferry, and I studied at the National Theatre there.

I never wanted to go to drama school. I thought that was too many eggs in one basket.