The only time I've played a real baddy was when I was Regan in 'King Lear.'
You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?
I was a football player at college and dislocated my thumb. I was out for a bit and passed the theatre and saw some lovely drama students walking into an audition for 'Much Ado About Nothing' and thought: 'That's what I'll do when I recover.' I joined that production and was hooked.
There would be more genuine rejoicing at the discovery of a complete new novel by Jane Austen than any other literary discovery, short of a new major play by Shakespeare.
I'd like to do a piece of Shakespeare. Any upcoming Shakespeare film. Just a bit to say I did a classic.
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.
The thing that I had saved up for myself and wanted most to bring off was a fully fledged professional production of Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford.
I did theater at Spelman until I graduated from there, and I got to work with such luminous actresses as Diana Sands in 'Macbeth.'
I'll have you know that as a young man, I spent an entire year as a woman in a world tour of 'As You Like It.' I played Celia.
I started out in the theater, and my background is classical. I'd love to be in a film version of a Shakespeare play.
When I was 15 years old, I saw my first production of a Shakespeare play at the British pavilion at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago.
My first part in a play was one of the witches in 'Macbeth.'
If an L.A. actor is a star or a good face, and they want to get cred by doing a serious Shakespeare play, they will come to New York first.
I did a play in New York at the public theater, a Shakespeare play, and M. Night Shyamalan, who is the writer/director of 'The Village,' came and saw me in the play and asked to go to lunch afterwards.
If you were to ask everyone what 'Hamlet' was about, they might say, "It's about a prince, and he says, 'To be or not to be.'"
Doing Much Ado was such a special thing because I knew everybody involved. With people you hadn't worked with before, you would watch them on shows and want to work with them.
I got my Equity card playing Helena in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' and I think that's the first job I got that was an offer.
When I was 10, my school did Romeo and Juliet. I was Juliet, and that was, like, the biggest deal ever. I was completely obsessed with the role.
I was in King Lear with Sir Tom Courtenay at The Royal Exchange in Manchester. In fact, that's where I met my husband. I was playing Regan and he was playing Cornwall and together we fell in love plucking out Gloucester's eyes. It was great fun. Everyone assumes that I was Cordelia because I've got blonde hair but I was Regan and they gave me a long auburn wig. It was great, good fun.
