Google
|
|
Our Show Business Quotations are arranged by author name.
Select the first character of the author's last name that you want to look at:
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
|
| Ben Kingsley
As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I'd still be alive by now. Being a leading man on a film set under the direction of somebody like Dickie Attenborough is very empowering, and you have to be extremely careful how you use that power. Every time we got something into the camera it was as if we were saying to the 6 million ghosts -- with a wry smile on our faces, and a sense of accomplishment -- ''That's for you!'' [On shooting Schindler's List]Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder. I always try to make whatever character I'm playing a completely whole human being, with integrity, morality-or the lack of. I try to give the audience an opportunity of looking at the screen and recognising something. I am not a classical actor; I am an entertainer. I fell into classical acting by mistake and actually started out as a singer. I wrote the music for a musical play and it transferred to London and I sang the songs in London. I am-hello!-an actor, an entertainer, a song-and-dance man. can do anything. I didn't go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey. I do have a massive curiosity. I do remember, as a child, that I always imagined, when I was maybe 6 or 7, my fantasy was that everywhere I went I was being followed by an invisible film crew. I enjoy this status so much, feeling that I'm close to the heart of the tribe as an actor, a storyteller, a troubadour, but socially quite distant because I don't fit into any particular comfortable slot. I have a rather naive approach, I think, to my job. I just loved playing a man who was unafraid of making an idiot of himself in the process of falling in love. I found that admirable. I just think that on the bedrock of his creative genius, there resided in Shakespeare a male psyche and a female psyche and that they both dwelled very creatively and energetically inside him. I like to do one or two films a year. But I can't prepare for something until I know what it's going to be. So I find that doing some narration, or maybe a documentary, is like going back into the gym for a couple of days. I think a great director is able to conclude things with grace... and I remember Gandhi ending in a very similar way. I think I'm more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary destinies. I think Romeo and Juliet is uplifting. That's how much a son wishes to avenge his father. That is how much two young people can love each other. I think that most actors, and they're a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child. I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen. I told myself that I would not go back to the camps as an actor ever again, that I was very frightened of wearing a yellow star. It was fear, it was cowardice, I was. I try not to make it easy for myself. I try very hard to stay in the moment. I'm not an actor who psyches himself up for a take. I do the opposite. I actually try and reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce, reduce and get to what I call a flat line or a zero. I was fortunate as a young actor, to go straight to the RSC, where I learned that being an actor can bring with it wonderful responsibilities. I was very lazy in the sixth form at school, I wasn't motivated properly, I handled it very badly and I was not given a place at university to study medicine. I wasn't particularly strong in the dramatic society, the drama group. I left Manchester Grammar School with abysmal A-level results. I then had a year's hiatus where I didn't know what to do at all. I would like to make it known, on this program, loud and clear, that I would absolutely embrace with all five of my arms being a Bond villain. I'm a hopping maniac, and if I didn't have that disciplined channel to pour this maniacal energy into, I'd probably go berserk. I'm holding a mirror to the audience and telling them there is a violent person in all of us. If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance. If you start to victimise yourself, as an unworthy component in a beautifully constructed machine, that component is going to fail the machinery. It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity. It's always very touching when you find a character on the screen who is fiercely defending your character. It's very difficult to be objective about one's childhood because you have no perspective on it. I have nothing to compare it with. The only way I can lead any kind of a comparative life is to portray other men. Maybe it's not a very businesslike approach, but it's always what attracts me... I do believe that it is that energy, that wonderful energy of the ancient craft of storytelling that will ignite something in the listeners. Moses had a very bad stammer. Aaron often had to speak for Moses when he was in front of the pharaoh and could not articulate. Once I start painting, once I start acting and working, it's not a holiday. It's not a respite, but it is, in a sense, a balance, but it's of equal weight. It's a balance; it does balance out. One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer. Quite often when I'm cast in a movie, I'm asked to bring whatever intelligence is there to the surface. Sometimes, you know, one is distracted by a bad print or a bad sound quality. The astonishing silences in a Tarkovsky film... can sweep you into screen and... you don't want to end. The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent. The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed. The title is the equivalent of when you become a doctor after years of medical school training... I suppose after years of chewing up the furniture and scenery on stage and in films I get to Sir for being a thespian. There are other non-English, Asian, Mexican... many, many directors I'd love to work with of different nationalities because a different national temperament and a different rhythm and a different way of looking at things is enlightening to work with. There have not been any troughs as regards my work. There's never been a trough of my assurance. There is a lot of creative energy in me right now. In the work I'm now doing, I know that my soul-my soul-is fully articulate. There is so much to do on a film set. It is an extraordinarily invigorating and wonderful place to be, when things are running well. There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word. There's always a part of me that's migrating. That's so much part of my attempt to portray all these different men. The sense of being displaced from my home, homeland and language is a very real part of my working life. There's nothing worse than taking your children to a bad pantomime where they are having more fun on stage than the kids are in the audience. It's insulting, it's demeaning, it's excluding. To offer to our tribe, as storytellers, narratives which are absent of a dark side is a terrible disservice. I'm just fighting for the right for a film to be stirring and brilliant and illuminating. What we have in Shakespeare is a very, very early form of device which today in screenplay is the BCU-big close up. When I choose a role it's either because I recognise the man, or that I'm very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don't play him. With narration, you have to be very accurate with your voice. It's a good exercise to do. |
|
|