I was 16 and did a play at school. I was a rather good student... And then I did a play when I was 16 and completely lost all my concentration for academics.
The RSC changed my career, and 'Coronation Street' changed my life.
'Hamlet' was the first movie I saw. In 1948, my mother said, 'I'm going to take you to see 'Hamlet' with Laurence Olivier.' She was worried about taking me to it because she wasn't sure I was old enough to understand it or to maybe be adversely affected by it, but I got recordings of it and memorized all the soliloquies.
I belong to that generation who, as students, had before their eyes, and were limited by, a horizon consisting of Marxism, phenomenology and existentialism. For me the break was first Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a breathtaking performance.
I didn't want to get into acting just to play bystanders. I feel a bystander enough in my own life. And I do think that theatre can contribute to a certain analysis and commentary on our own world.
You know, for me, the realization that two people should have the right to form a sacred union regardless of their gender was strengthened when I saw a performance of the play The Normal Heart in 1985. After feeling the love those two men had for each other, I dare anybody not to want them to get married by the end.
One of the greatest things about the theatre is how it can completely change the way you see the world around you. 'Dear Evan Hansen' did this for me.
I think the same way about theatre, you go out there and you are creating a world for a moment that can actually have a real impact on people, present some kind of story that gives you something to think about when you walk away, feeling enriched - if it works out well.
I believe in the American theatre. I believe in its power to inform about the human condition, its power to heal ... its power to uncover the truths we wrestle from uncertain and sometimes unyielding realities.
I feel there's a power in theatre, but it's an indirect power. It's like the relationship of the sleeper to the unconscious. You discover things you can't afford to countenance in waking life. You can forget them, remember them a day later or not have any idea what they are about.
Theatre polished me as an artist.
Photography was inspired by painting, cinema by theatre and photography, I don't believe that any new art form was ever created from scratch.
Probably my first memory of theatre, the first one I guess that had an impact on me was when I saw my very first panto with my Primary School. I think just going there and experience that for the first time, being so young, it's something that's actually stuck with me right up until now. And to think back and to sort of remember that magic and that first little hint of it was brilliant.
There's something about doing theatre in London - it sinks a little bit deeper into your soul as an actor. It's something about the tradition of theatre, about performing on the West End stage.
A handful of works in history have had a direct impact on social policy: one or two works of Dickens, some of Zola, 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and, in modern drama, Larry Kramer's 'The Normal Heart.'
Theatre worked as a big boost and improved my film career.
We have the ability to change people's minds and hearts - that's what we want to do with theatre. That's what theatre does... period.
I don't think theatre has changed; it's society that has changed.
It's been in my musical DNA since I was a little kid. I think musical theatre has really influenced everything I've done.
I regard the theatre as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone.
I was nine. I saw Orson Welles in 'Julius Caesar.' It was involving, emotional, imaginative. I've never forgotten it.
Maybe the theatre isn't any place for a reasonable human being after all. It keeps your emotions in such a constant state of upheaval. It's really terribly wearing. I wonder if I could stand it, one emotional upset after the other just going on and on for the rest of my life.
Maybe all theatre is going to be irrelevant for all time.
The theatre community is so powerful.
That was the bat signal for me - 'Rent' changed my life. It took me years before I got beyond that show.
