People often ask me how long it takes me to write a play, and I tell them 'all of my life.'
It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work - the night watchman.
Playwriting gets into your blood and you can't stop it. At least not until the producers or the public tell you to.
Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.
Free speech means the right to shout 'theatre' in a crowded fire.
I have the terrible feeling that, because I am wearing a white beard and am sitting in the back of the theatre, you expect me to tell you the truth about something. These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.
My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.
History is a mighty dramos, enacted upon the theatre of times, with suns for lamps and eternity for a background.
Personally, I'd like as many children as I can pop out, I reckon. You come from a happy family; you want to create a happy family. And in the same breath, I'd like to be on stage at England's National Theatre, doing Miller and Chekhov. Give me a Sam Mendes/Tennessee Williams combination-that would be glorious. And to be making some Oscar-worthy movies with Scorsese. I'm always looking for the hard road. That way, you remain interested and interesting. Hopefully.
For me, making films is like being on vacation, it's a nice walk. But theatre is like mountaineering. You never know whether you're going to fall off or make it to the top.
I hold theatre acting in such high esteem that it scares me.
This profusion of eccentricities, this dream in masonry and living rock is not a drop scene in a theatre, but a city in the world of reality.
In raising a people from slavery to freedom, you have called them to act on a new theatre; and it is a necessary part of your business, to teach them how to perform their parts.
Remember this practical piece of advice: Never come into the theatre with mud on your feet. Leave your dust and dirt outside. Check your little worries, squabbles, petty difficulties with your outside clothing - all the things that ruin your life and draw your attention away from your art - at the door.
Compare the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.
I definitely want to go back to the theatre. It is hard work, it is repetitive, but it is intensely rewarding.
An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so he must be willing to accept all experiences that life can offer.
You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film - you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up.
The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting.
When you stand and share your story in an empowering way, your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else.
Whatever may be the pros and cons of going to the public theatre, it is a patent fact that it has undermined the morals and ruined the character of many a youth in his country.
To save the Theatre, the Theatre must be destroyed, and actors and actresses all die of the Plague ... they make art impossible.
Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.
Theatre is liberating because it only works if it's truthful, That's what it requires. That's not true of film: the camera does lie.
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