Top 85 Quotes & Sayings by Roger Rees
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Welsh actor Roger Rees.
Last updated on September 7, 2024.
When it was announced I had won the Tony Award, I was in Bangkok doing a movie with Judi Dench. I remember coming back from the location to the Oriental Hotel and hearing someone yelling across the reception area, 'You've won the Tony!' It was wonderful and strange to be halfway around the world.
After I left the R.S.C., I did a musical, 'Masquerade,' where I played a rabbit. I was the lead.
I don't think perfection is possible. I think you can attempt to reach perfection, but I don't think it's a possible thing. I think perfection is a moving point, and we spend our artistic lives chasing it.
My neighborhood in South London was very Dickensian.
I'm really interested in the form, putting one piece up against another and finding something corroborative in another voice. I've done a lot of that.
Everything happens every night for this audience, and it's a very special occasion to come to the theatre.
I think like an actor when I'm acting, and I think like a director when I'm directing.
No lens is quick enough to track the movement of the human body. The molecules are always moving.
In Tom Cone's work nothing is easy.
So, suddenly I was an actor. I don't remember being nervous. I learned to be nervous later.
Television is an important part of how we communicate.
Nothing in the world in perfect. Even a still photograph.
I want to play King Lear, Macbeth, Benedict, Coriolanus. I wouldn't mind doing Hamlet again. Well, I'm a little old. Perhaps I can rub Vaseline on the audience's eyes.
The sense of popularity in an actor is essential.
I like working with authors who are a bit pesky.
I was 36 when I played Nicholas Nickleby.
There's something very fine and lucid and rich in this tradition of the English actor.
The loser, the fool, is embraced in England because there is a recognition of silliness there that allows a person to keep his ambitions and desires at a certain distance. Just being in the race is enough.
If you take away a lot of the pretension and grandness from Shakespeare, a true poeticism is revealed.
Rattigan wrote some very good plays.
I love to argue and share bright ideas in a rehearsal room, and when you live with somebody who is working on the same show, the delight can go on all evening!
History is with us until we learn from the suffering of the past.
Anything I do is as theatrical as I can get it.
Sometimes the most excruciating experiences in rehearsals and performances yield the most beautiful work.
I directed Bebe Neuwirth in 'Here Lies Jenny' at the Post Street Theatre. I was gobsmacked - the audiences were extremely knowledgeable, affectionate, interested, and not cynical.
More people saw me in one episode of 'Cheers' than would ever see me in a play.
In the Victorian age, actors played Romeo until they were 60 or 70 years old.
That's been the tragedy of my life, actually. I've always looked younger than I am.
Rattigan's world demanded unwavering trust in principles, loyalty, and virtue. At the time of this play - Rattigan was writing this play in 1947 about an incident that took place in 1914 - should a boy say he didn't do something, his father would believe him; a British father would take the defense of his son's honor to his grave.
The Elizabethan mind wanted and demanded that one word could mean 50 things. What Shakespeare offers us is not ambiguity; it's choices.
I am an anthologist, you see. I sort of make anthologies for people.
I was an art student when I was a boy, and as an art student you don't have to talk to anyone - you just have to paint really wonderful paintings. It's very unlike being an actor, where you have to talk all the time.
They said my voice was terrible, nervous, and spotty and that I must go away and learn how to use it properly. I must admit I was rather agape, since I had never thought about making my voice better.
Even Shakespeare gives you a scene off.
I joined the Royal Shakespeare Co. with no experience whatsoever - I'd never been to a drama school or anything. But I was strong and could lift things, I could move scenery about.
I used to be the voice of Virgin Atlantic in America, and some people only know me for that.
If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing sitcoms.
The classical actor in England makes roughly the equivalent of a bus driver.
Exercising choice is a good thing.
All this thing that L.A. doesn't have any love for the theater isn't true.
You might be the best Hamlet of your generation in the bathroom, but unfortunately, you have to come out and do it on stage, and it's best to do it to people who would fill the house.
I'm astonished to say, but people are really pleased to hear what happened to me, the way I got a little bit more confident, the people I've met, and the things I didn't know.
The whole point is it's about getting as many people to come and see the play as you can.
I was at a pretty rough school, and the only thing I was good at was art.
I got out of this school and went to Camberwell College of Arts, a terribly prestigious thing to do. I was there to be a painter. And I sketched so well that, a year later, I was sent to Slade School of Fine Art, one of the great art schools.
I wish I'd played Coriolanus.
I usually played comic lovers or losers - weak, ineffectual men.
I thought acting was just going on and remembering all of one's lines.
Now, when I talk about Shakespeare, I can't talk too much about Gielgud or Olivier. Because nobody knows who I'm talking about.
Well-written plays deserve to be learned from and understood properly, both by actors and audiences alike, and Rattigan's very human characters help us do that.
I've been with Shakespeare all my life.
We did a black 'Julius Caesar' in which the predominant accent was Caribbean. This offends many people, you know. I also had a Chinese Marc Anthony. I also managed - this caused a great shock - I also got some white guys in it as well!
I just do what I'm asked, really.
Sometimes I think I'll go off and be a milkman or a greengrocer, some easy job.
Some of the finest Shakespeare has been done recently by college theater programs. I'll tell you what these young kids have: They have a natural authority in Shakespeare. They feel a right to do it. And once they honor the humanity of it, the rhythm of the verse comes with it.
I love to see people blossom.
Arthur Winslow is one of the great parts.
It doesn't seem Shakespeare works if you turn him into a religion.
The hard thing is making sure you work with wonderful people and that you get something out of it so that you can get better as an actor.
Mostly, theater becomes blander and blander as everyone wants the same thing they saw before. The good plays are the ones that don't allow you to do that.
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