Rex Harrison Quotes

I was a repertory actor, which meant that I did a play every week. I was a different character every week; for a year, I was doing 40 or 50 characters.

I will do plays as long as they're interested in having me do them. It's the biggest opportunity to learn the most about how to act. Something I discover every time I'm doing one is how little I know about acting - how important the art of listening is, and how important it is to listen with your entire body. You can tell so much of a story with stillness, and a lot of that can be from really actively listening to your scene partner.

I grew up in musical theatre and love to perform on stage.

Performing on stage is my first love - it's why I wanted to be an actor in the first place - and 'Arcadia' is the highlight of my career so far. I love the intimacy of a live theatre audience - you can really squeeze every last drop out of each scene.

Acting on stage is still my favorite thing to do. And everyone who's been in musicals knows that there is nothing more fun.

I figured as I got older, the good roles for women would be in the theatre. So 15 years ago I started building a Broadway career to try and develop the chops to be accepted as a great theatrical actress.

I never went into acting to do film. I went into it to do theatre - classical roles.

One time, I had to do Edgar in 'King Lear' and Owl in 'Winnie the Pooh' on the same day.

I think I have a period drama face. That's the reason I've always gone back to the West End, because for me, that's where all the interesting roles have been.

I feel like my home is stage acting.

Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

I played Thersites and I remember we were also doing some places out of town before starting our run at The Old Vic in London and we were at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford and I walked on stage and I've got an opening speech that begins: "Agamemnon, how if he had boils?" And I went on and said: "Agamemnon..." And a woman in the front row just went 'tut'. I thought: "I've only done four syllables, give us a chance!" I got one word out and the audience were already tutting. It was worse than any heckle I ever had doing comedy. So, I'll stick to gnomes.

There's nothing hard about acting except the long hours.

Ah, nuts. I'm an actor. I just do what comes naturally.

I like doing horror films. I think it's helped me as an actress because you have to run and scream and cry for so long and do ridiculous things in front of strangers, you sort of break down any barriers, you can't be embarrassed.

I mean, stand up you're by yourself and it's live and when you're acting, unless you're doing a monologue, you're interacting with somebody else. Even if you're doing a monologue you're saying it to somebody and it's not live so you can do it a few times.

I think for acting on stage and in film, one informs the other. Obviously, they require really different kinds of discipline and really different kinds of work. It's more along the same continuum, for me.

There are different types of art, and you just have to follow where things take you. It helps me with my desire to perform live. That's something that a lot of actors and actresses don't get to experience on a regular basis.

One of the things on a very practical level as an actor or actress is that when you do a play, you do the entire story every time you do it. You have eight shows a week. You have a rehearsal process of four to five to six weeks. And then once you're in performance, everybody else goes away and you're there with your fellow actors and the audience and the material and your life becomes about that. And you go through the story from the beginning to the end every time you do it and depending on how long you do it, that's where the craft comes in.

I was on Broadway for three years with Spiderman and that amount of time spent on a show - it's a grind being on Broadway. The people that do that are probably the hardest working people. I shouldn't say that, because there's a lot of hard work that goes on in film and television, as well. That consistency of the grind of eight shows a week - I feel ready to go back to it now after having a bit of a break. I like to have the chance to jump between different art forms, whether it be theatre, film, TV, music. It's really wonderful to have opportunities in different arenas.

I stopped acting when I was about nineteen, twenty, when I got thrown out of college. I did act for about ten years. I don't know. I suspect I'm still a reasonably good actor, but I don't really know that I want to get on the stage again ... and having to say all those boring words by me over and over again ... I don't know if I want to do that. Also, I like a certain amount of freedom of movement, and if you're acting, you're stuck in one place for a long time. Having said that, I will probably be onstage next fall.

Marlon once said to me about being an actor: Can you imagine going to work every day and pretending to be someone else?

A theater is such a revealing form of art, such a transparent and good actors, they're such powerful individuals. I always kind of dreamt that one day I will open my mouth on stage.

I don't really think it matters if you go into stage or TV as long as you do a bit of character work, really.

When I say that the acting is sort of like a normal acting experience, I'm just talking about the interacting in actual scenes, like doing dialogue.