A Quote by Mark Strong

I studied at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which was founded by Laurence Olivier and has alumni like Jeremy Irons and Daniel Day Lewis. It's a very erudite institution; its ethos, really, was always theatre-based.
I didn't go to university. I studied theatre in high school and worked with Canberra Youth Theatre and The Street Theatre and other theatre organisations in Canberra, and that's how I got my training.
I came to theatre as a teenager by going to the National Theatre when it was at the Old Vic and sitting on padded seats in the gallery for 15 pence, which was the price of a bus fare.
I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertakers assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertaker's assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
I stayed a year in the sixth form and there was talk of Cambridge, but I wanted to go to drama school. At 17 and three months I went to the Old Vic School in London. This most remarkable and brilliant drama school lasted only six years because the Old Vic Theatre hadn't the money to go on funding it.
I loved English at school and realised I would enjoy studying plays. I got into Royal Holloway. They had a little studio theatre where we put on plays, and that's what I realised I wanted to do. So from there, I went to the Old Vic theatre school to learn how to do it properly.
Before I worked on film, I studied the theatre, and I expected that I would spend my whole career in theatre. Gradually, I started writing for the cinema. However, I feel grateful towards the theatre. I love working with spectators, and I love this experience with the theatre, and I like theatre culture.
I had done some acting at school, but I wasn't particularly good at it. What inspired me was going to the Old Vic in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the National Theatre was based there.
Professionally, I was at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and did lots of things there, and then I won the BBC Carlton Hobbs Award, so I did some BBC Radio drama work, which is a lovely way to start out because you work with lots of great people, and you're working all the time, so you're learning rather than sitting around and waitressing.
From musicals to plays, I was part of all things theatrical all through my school life in Chandigarh, and this helped me develop a strong love for theatre and acting. Even during college, I was active in the theatre scene and even founded two theatre groups.
I would have liked Sir Laurence Olivier to ask me to go to the Old Vic and let me play all the roles Judi Dench got.
I meet Daniel Day-Lewis. He's just sitting in a chair on the set. Now, I had been told that Daniel Day-Lewis was kind of an intense person. And he's really not. He's really THE MOST INTENSE PERSON THAT HAS EVER EXISTED ON THE PLANET OF EARTH. He's not doing anything, he's just sitting in a chair, and I am terrified of him as if a jungle cat has wandered onto the set, like- WHOA! What do we do! Are we supposed to move around a lot or stay perfectly still?! What are the rules of Daniel Day-Lewis?!
I never studied theatre; I learned it by doing it. If I had studied theatre, I would not be making the kind of theatre I am making.
Yes, it's true, I've been called the Laurence Olivier of spoofs. I guess that would make Laurence Olivier the Leslie Nielsen of Shakespeare.
I got a grant for the Old Vic Theatre School in London, which had just started. It was only five terms; they used to break you down and never quite put you together again but it was an excellent training.
A fan once stopped me outside a theatre and gave me as a gift a signed photograph of Sir Laurence Olivier. It was strange, but nice, too.
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