A Quote by Ioan Gruffudd
Growing up in Wales, there was a lot of fervour about being Welsh. But the more that I travelled, I realised that people aren't always interested in where you're from, but who you are.
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I've always felt very proud of Wales and being Welsh. People are a bit surprised when I say I'm Welsh. I was born in Wales, went to school in Wales and my mother was Welsh. I'm Welsh. It's my place of birth, my country.
I regret not paying a bit more attention to Welsh lessons at school. My Welsh is pretty ropey, as back at my school, people didn't take Welsh lessons seriously. My dad can speak it, so I wish he'd taught me some growing up.
Everyone I know is fervently proud to be Welsh but you try not to be preachy about it. It's difficult at times. But when I go home to north Wales, or to somewhere I've never been in south Wales, I still feel at home because I'm in Wales. It's hard to explain.
I see myself as a different sort of Welsh. Because we are from Cardiff, we see Wales as Cardiff. This is Wales; outside Cardiff is beyond. It's a strange one. You are really Welsh, but you're not, if you know what I mean.
My parents aren't artists or anything, but growing up in Wales, especially in a Welsh language school and community, they have this thing called the Eisteddfod where people compete in singing and acting and dancing and oratory all sorts of things. From a very young age, it's been a part of my upbringing.
When I moved to Wales more than twenty years ago and began to research 'Here Be Dragons,' I was fascinated from the first by the Welsh medieval laws, by the discovery that women enjoyed a greater status in Wales than elsewhere in Europe.
I grew up in Shropshire, but I was born in Wales. There was a hospital seven miles away, but my dad drove 45 miles over the Welsh border so I could play rugby for Wales. But as a skinny asthmatic, I was only ever good at swimming.
It's funny because when you're a Welshman living in England, you always get the mickey taken out of you for being Welsh, and then when you go to Wales with an English accent because you were born in Bristol and grew up in Birmingham, they say you're English. You can never win.
It was a proof of Welsh good nature: so long as I had a friend that knew and could introduce me, the whole Welsh people would do anything to entertain, and would even neglect their business to do so. But as a stranger in Wales, it is difficult to break through their suspicion and mistrust.
My parents were always Welsh-speaking and very proud of Wales.
To be honest, I think that I am a bit of a singer, coming from Wales; being Welsh, we are all very proud of our singing heritage.
As a kid, I was always more interested in watching others than being the centre of attention. I've always felt that you can see a lot more and learn a lot more when you're standing on the edge.
I was always very interested in fitness, I played a lot of sports growing up.
I think the French agonise more about being French, I don't think English think about being English that much. I think the Scottish think about being Scottish and the Welsh think about being Welsh, but the English don't really care. But the French think about it all the time, it's an absolute preoccupation.
When I was growing up, I didn't realize that the idiosyncrasies of my mother's character had something to do with our culture. After growing up and reflecting and making more Asian-American friends, I learned that a lot this is something a lot of people grow up with.
I was always far more into anything creative that called for a bit of active participation, like reading aloud in class. Then, having left school shortly after my GCSEs, I auditioned for the National Youth Theatre of Wales and the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain as well as the Welsh National Youth Opera. I ended up getting into all three.
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