Shakespearean Theatre Quotes

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

When I was 16, we moved to live in Stratford-Upon-Avon. That was the year of Paul Scofield's 'Lear.' I think he is still widely perceived as the only actor who has got his flag at the top of the mountain.

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.'

In actual fact, I doubled 'Twelfth Night' and 'The Avengers'. I was going backwards and forwards to Stratford. I played matinees Wednesday, matinee and evenings Saturdays, and the other days of the week, I was filming in Elstree.

I was a Shakespearean actor, I had preconceived ideas, line readings - everything was a gesture, everything was conscious.

The thing I'd really like to see is the old London Bridge, with all the old buildings around it like Shakespeare's Globe. I'd like to walk along that. Don't worry, I won't get drunk and fall in.

One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.

I'll have you know that as a young man, I spent an entire year as a woman in a world tour of 'As You Like It.' I played Celia.

The only theatre I ever saw was Shakespeare.

Peter Brook's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' I remember seeing. That was pretty early on. And suddenly, I realized how theatrical Shakespeare is, how alive, how wonderful it is when it's opened up by a great director and a great company.

I'd like to do more Shakespeare. I'd like to do Iago in Othello. I look so benign. It would be interesting to see that black evil come out of my soul.

Nobody's ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there's some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

As a child, I would watch 'Frasier' a lot, and there was one episode with Derek Jacobi where he was playing this Shakespearean actor that was a terrible Hamlet. And he reenacted the performance, and for days I went on. I'd perform and do that, and I knew I wanted to do something kind of like that as a kid for awhile.

If an L.A. actor is a star or a good face, and they want to get cred by doing a serious Shakespeare play, they will come to New York first.

I saw Derek Jacobi play Hamlet when I was 17, and he directed me as Hamlet when I was 27, and I directed him as Claudius in 'Hamlet' when I was 35, and I'm hoping we meet again in some other production of Hamlet before we both toddle off.

I don't know if anyone knows if they're ever any good, but I went to drama school in Scotland, in a classical acting course, and my first year, I remember one of my tutors telling me that I couldn't act, and I should give up and all this sort of thing, and then, they cast me as Romeo in 'Romeo and Juliet.'