I sometimes think that theatre is a torture.

I sometimes think that theatre is a torture.

Cruelty to children is the thing I can least bear in the world.

Everything contains its antithesis.

I do understand that onstage there are times when you think, 'I could not be more alive than I am at this moment. I can't do most things in life. This is what I'm for.'

I grew up all over the world. My father was in the army and was posted to a new place every two and a half years. I have no geographical roots.

I have a wardrobe full of expensive clothes, but wear the same two T-shirts. I've never found a look.

I have quite a robust relationship with regret. You simply don't know what the alternative would have been.

I hope to have more time to think, to look at the sky, dealing with less crisis management, to learn another language, to travel.

I never have time to myself; it's the one thing about my life I would probably hope to change.

I often don't feel like the person I look like.

I often wrangle with myself as an actor, and wrestle with the process. In striving for authenticity I often have the feeling I am falling short.

I wanted to be the conduit for somebody else's experiences, filtered through me, and passed on to other people. Which is the job description, really.

I wouldn't even begin to presume that the talent of an able actor is anything like the talents of a prodigious musician.

I'd rather be useful than rich. It's more essential to feel you're doing something that's worth doing, rather than making a lot of money.

I'm hardly Hollywood material - they're interested in youth and perfection and I lay no claims to either. It's not a place that's particularly interested in talent.

If I could have any artist's work on my sitting room wall it would probably be by Van Gogh or Picasso.

In our own, theatre can be the place where we come together, reaching with and through stories, to who we are and to who we can be.

In the garden of our house, when I was three. My brothers and I had a jumping wall. I remember it as enormously high, but it was probably only about a foot and a half.

It is intensely frustrating. The longer you live, the more interesting life gets, and yet many of the parts involve carrying trays and putting lamb chops down in front of the leading man.

Sometimes I think it'd be fun to do a completely different job for a while. You've got one life and you do the same job for the whole of it, and you think - was that a good use of a life?

There's still a massive inequality between the genders. If you look at the trajectory of a male actor's career, there's no hesitation or hiatus. But women after the age of 35 to 40 are rarely placed in the centre of the story.

I prefer theatre but TV keeps you well known.

At the University of Maryland, my first year I started off planning to major in art because I was interested in theatre design, stage design or television design.

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.

By obtaining a sense of its place in the unfolding drama of life, set in an ecological theatre, so we can understand why it has become one of the leading players.

Many of the Universities have very good Theatre Departments these days.

For the theatre one needs long arms... an artiste with short arms can never make a fine gesture.

Theatre director: a person engaged by the management to conceal the fact that the players cannot act.

I think theatre should always be somewhat suspect.

It's great to be in a film that's able to have people really want to become socially conscious, to walk out of the theatre and want to do something.

When the cinematograph first made its appearance, we were told that the days of the ordinary theatre were numbered.

But I think theatre in a repressive society is an immensely exciting event and theatre in a luxurious old, affluent old society like ours is an entertaining event.

The play is on top of me all the time, and I am constantly thinking about it. Even when I leave the theatre, I'll mumble the lines to myself or think about the way the character walks or holds himself.

I would have started the National Actors Theatre 30 years earlier.

I've been doing theatre since I was 5 years old.

I was on a founding members of the Canadian theatre movement in the late 60's till the mid 70's and performed theatre from Halifax to Vancouver and all places in between.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

This is a group effort. This is group theatre. This is no big star turn. You could do things with it to do that but it would just be out of kilter. This is one reason I like this play. This is a unit.

I feel that David took a risk with me. I have a sense that by starting off in the theatre and going off to do films you are seen to sell out in some way. I don't hold truck with that, but you can't stop people from feeling it.

Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre.

My parents used to take me to a lot of theatre when I was young.

Film is fragmented and gets into lots of other people's hands. There are a lot of pleasures that theatre gives me. You get to perform uninterrupted.

The difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.

I was prepared for the theatre, but not for the nuts and bolts.

Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.

Theatre sports is the best improv training period.

You can only do so much theatre.