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.
There have not been any troughs as regards my work. There’s never been a trough of my assurance.
In England, it’s now Sir Ben. Mister has just disappeared. It’s not even on my passport anymore. They’ve taken Mister away from me.
I’ve never had to turn my hand to anything for monetary gain, other than pretending to be somebody else. I’m deeply fortunate.
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 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 try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.
You want to know what I want? I’ll tell you what I want. I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared.
Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.
As an actor there’s no autonomy, unless you’re prepared to risk the possibility of starving.
But comedy I’d love to do as much as humanly possible.
It’s Sir Ben. I’ve not been a Mister for two years.
There is always something about the villains that I’m able to play, quote unquote, that isn’t villainous.
If the director wishes to print it, then you have a series of choices, maybe millions of choices within that minute-and-a-half, or 80 seconds, or 2 minutes or however long or short the take is, you have all those choices committed to celluloid. I find that absolutely thrilling.
The number of choices you make in the event that you see on stage, those choices are sometimes largely determined by the rehearsal process and the experiments that you go through and the choices that you make in the rehearsal room, not in front of an audience.
Shock is shock. Your body goes into shock, regardless of it being real blood or fake blood. The mind sends powerful messages to all the various glands and secretions in the body. It’s impossible trying to act it; it just happens. It’s a very important question: no acting.
I’ve met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.
With narration, you have to be very accurate with your voice. It’s a good exercise to do.
When Attenborough asked me to do Gandhi it was almost like stepping off one boat and stepping on to another, even though both boats are going at 60 miles per hour.
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.
The leaping Jaguar on the bonnet, to me, makes it look more like a hunter than something that is getting away. It’s a hunter. Richard III definitely would have had a chauffeur driven Jaguar MK X.