Everything happens every night for this audience, and it's a very special occasion to come to the theatre.
Roger Rees
'Merry Wives of Windsor' is a wonderful machine. It's one of the great farces, and it's astonishing to remember that this is written by the same man who wrote 'Hamlet,' 'The Taming of the Shrew' or 'Cymbeline.' It's so similar, and yet the form is so different.
When it was announced I had won the Tony Award, I was in Bangkok doing a movie with Judi Dench. I remember coming back from the location to the Oriental Hotel and hearing someone yelling across the reception area, 'You've won the Tony!' It was wonderful and strange to be halfway around the world.
I want to play King Lear, Macbeth, Benedict, Coriolanus. I wouldn't mind doing Hamlet again. Well, I'm a little old. Perhaps I can rub Vaseline on the audience's eyes.
It doesn't seem Shakespeare works if you turn him into a religion.
I got out of this school and went to Camberwell College of Arts, a terribly prestigious thing to do. I was there to be a painter. And I sketched so well that, a year later, I was sent to Slade School of Fine Art, one of the great art schools.
I've often thought I'm a short music hall comedian stuck in a leading man's body.
So, suddenly I was an actor. I don't remember being nervous. I learned to be nervous later.
I directed Bebe Neuwirth in 'Here Lies Jenny' at the Post Street Theatre. I was gobsmacked - the audiences were extremely knowledgeable, affectionate, interested, and not cynical.
The sense of popularity in an actor is essential.
Some of the finest Shakespeare has been done recently by college theater programs. I'll tell you what these young kids have: They have a natural authority in Shakespeare. They feel a right to do it. And once they honor the humanity of it, the rhythm of the verse comes with it.
The Elizabethan mind wanted and demanded that one word could mean 50 things. What Shakespeare offers us is not ambiguity; it's choices.
More people saw me in one episode of 'Cheers' than would ever see me in a play.
Sometimes the most excruciating experiences in rehearsals and performances yield the most beautiful work.
I'm really interested in the form, putting one piece up against another and finding something corroborative in another voice. I've done a lot of that.
Most of my enjoyable times in the theater have been working in a group.
The hard thing is making sure you work with wonderful people and that you get something out of it so that you can get better as an actor.
Television is an important part of how we communicate.
In Tom Cone's work nothing is easy.
I usually played comic lovers or losers - weak, ineffectual men.
Mostly, theater becomes blander and blander as everyone wants the same thing they saw before. The good plays are the ones that don't allow you to do that.
The whole point is it's about getting as many people to come and see the play as you can.
You got paid on Friday, go for a late-night poker game, and have no money on Saturday. But the RSC took your rent out of the paycheck, so at least you had a place to sleep.
I used to be the voice of Virgin Atlantic in America, and some people only know me for that.
I have a little studio in Chinatown, and I sometimes go there and rearrange my brushes. But I would have to stop acting altogether in order to become a painter. At the moment, I'm still interested and active as an actor and director. Besides, I rather think acting and painting are all part of the same creative urge.
The loser, the fool, is embraced in England because there is a recognition of silliness there that allows a person to keep his ambitions and desires at a certain distance. Just being in the race is enough.
I love to argue and share bright ideas in a rehearsal room, and when you live with somebody who is working on the same show, the delight can go on all evening!
After I left the R.S.C., I did a musical, 'Masquerade,' where I played a rabbit. I was the lead.
I do one thing Gielgud didn't: I play the ukulele.
Now, of course, we know there has been an end to apartheid in South Africa, but what excited me was seeing it in the context of history.
Rattigan's world demanded unwavering trust in principles, loyalty, and virtue. At the time of this play - Rattigan was writing this play in 1947 about an incident that took place in 1914 - should a boy say he didn't do something, his father would believe him; a British father would take the defense of his son's honor to his grave.
I thought acting was just going on and remembering all of one's lines.
If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing sitcoms.
My first acquaintance with 'Peter Pan' was back when I lived in South London. I was at art school, and I needed to earn money, so I got a job as a stagehand at the Wimbledon Theatre, and 'Peter Pan' was on tour there with Donald Sinden, who was playing Captain Hook.
We did a black 'Julius Caesar' in which the predominant accent was Caribbean. This offends many people, you know. I also had a Chinese Marc Anthony. I also managed - this caused a great shock - I also got some white guys in it as well!
My neighborhood in South London was very Dickensian.
I've always thought like I'm really a 3-feet-high comic trapped in a leading man's body... but then I played Nicholas Nickleby, and suddenly I was heroic.
I was at a pretty rough school, and the only thing I was good at was art.
If you take away a lot of the pretension and grandness from Shakespeare, a true poeticism is revealed.
They said my voice was terrible, nervous, and spotty and that I must go away and learn how to use it properly. I must admit I was rather agape, since I had never thought about making my voice better.
I was a skinny 17-year-old.
I love to see people blossom.
That's been the tragedy of my life, actually. I've always looked younger than I am.
You might be the best Hamlet of your generation in the bathroom, but unfortunately, you have to come out and do it on stage, and it's best to do it to people who would fill the house.
Arthur Winslow is one of the great parts.
The shields were enormous. In 'Julius Caesar,' I died early in the scene and used to fall asleep under the shield until I was woken up by applause.
I like to do really good things. But 'good' - witness Charles Dickens - doesn't mean 'not popular.'
I like working with authors who are a bit pesky.
There's something very fine and lucid and rich in this tradition of the English actor.
I wish I'd played Coriolanus.
