Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next.

'Macbeth' is one of the best operas ever, and doing it was a great experience. I added some things to the opera based from my experience on the movie - such as some of the special effects and bits of film - to make it new and interesting. It was a very good work and a very good experience.

I think there is this huge hole in Shakespeare that you do not know why Macbeth is who he is.

I'm much more likely to get lynched over 'The Killing' than 'Macbeth.'

If you look at the play very closely, this is a thirdhand report of what a wonderful hero Macbeth is for saving Scotland. And in the next scene, he's planning to murder Duncan, and you never really know why or what's behind Macbeth.

Historically, Macbeth is one of the greatest kings Scotland ever had. He was on the throne for 19 years, and he simply has this dreadful reputation because Shakespeare manipulated history for the benefit of James I, who was paying him to write the play to blacken Macbeth's name.

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.

Sometimes I wake up and think, 'I want to look like Sherlock Holmes today,' and other times I want to look like a witch from 'Macbeth.'

If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.

I'm just having a wonderful time. It's an interesting thing that I'm very comfortable with this material and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I did MacBeth.

After making my stage debut aged nine as Macduff's small son in 'Macbeth,' I had played a number of parts, from 'Twelfth Night's Viola to 'The Merchant Of Venice's Portia'.

I have been thinking a lot about what we see in villains, how we relate to villains, and what it is about certain villains that we actually empathize with. Like Macbeth. We're not supposed to like a guy who kills the king and takes over, but there's something about him we're really fascinated by.

'Lady Macbeth' is a great opportunity for me to prove that maybe the outcome of 'The Falling' was not necessarily a fluke.

With 'Lady Macbeth,' I had two other things offered to me, and they would have also been very fun, but you just have to figure that out. And then you do it.

Every time 'Lady Macbeth' and everyone involved in the film gets nominated, it's amazing.

I think it's so interesting which ways your career can go. I would have been a completely different actor doing a completely different story, and I would have missed 'Lady Macbeth.'

The biggest thing about 'Lady Macbeth' is the fact that people are so surprised that this woman is so amazing, and really, it shouldn't be so amazing that this incredible character is on our screens.

Sometimes I want to have a mental book burning that would scour my mind clean of all the filthy visions literature has conjured there. But how to do without 'The Illiad?' How to do without 'Macbeth?'

I want to play Lady Macbeth. I have a big chip on my shoulder about Lady Macbeth. People usually play her as this cold, Greek witch, but there's no evidence of that in the text! I think her intentions are pure.

I had great English teachers in high school who first piqued my interest in Shakespeare. Each year, we read a different play - 'Othello,' 'Julius Caesar,' 'Macbeth,' 'Hamlet' - and I was the nerd in class who would memorize soliloquies just for the fun of it.

'Macbeth' was a very lucky play for me.

Macbeth is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of Macbeth. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.

The most likely explanation is the most practical. 'Macbeth' is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of 'Macbeth'. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting.

I first came across the script for 'Macbeth' between the ages of 11 and 12; it was the first book that shook my life. Because I did not yet understand that I could simply purchase it in a bookstore, I copied much of it by hand and took it home. My childhood imagination pushed me to feel like a co-author of the play.

I couldn't be more proud to introduce Anne-Marie Duff, a phenomenal actress who is bursting on the world stage, to Broadway audiences as Lady Macbeth.

What does Macbeth want? What does Shakespeare want? What does Othello want? What does James want? What does Arthur Miller want when he wrote? Those things you incorporate and create in the character, and then you step back and you create it. It always must begin with the point of truth within yourself.

We just don't need any more 'Macbeth's in the world, however brilliant mine might turn out to be.

'Macbeth' sags in act four - the England scene with Malcolm and Macduff just doesn't work theatrically. But with 'Hamlet,' although the play is so long, Shakespeare manages to sustain the arc.

Macbeth is contending with the realities of this world, Hamlet with those of the next.

If Shakespeare had to go on an author tour to promote Romeo and Juliet, he never would have written Macbeth.

I think 'Macbeth' was a play that I've always gotten so much out of. My wife played Lady Macbeth in a play, and I designed it. There are things in there that are just kind of extraordinary.