A Quote by Winston Duke

As a child, I would watch 'Frasier' a lot, and there was one episode with Derek Jacobi where he was playing this Shakespearean actor that was a terrible Hamlet. And he reenacted the performance, and for days I went on. I'd perform and do that, and I knew I wanted to do something kind of like that as a kid for awhile.
I saw Derek Jacobi play Hamlet when I was 17, and he directed me as Hamlet when I was 27, and I directed him as Claudius in 'Hamlet' when I was 35, and I'm hoping we meet again in some other production of Hamlet before we both toddle off.
Derek Jacobi is probably our finest actor.
When you're on set with an actor like Derek Jacobi, it's not hard to tell the truth when you're looking in his eyes, and he's so open and creative and ready to play.
I haven't always wanted to be an actor, no. I wasn't one of the little kids that was desperate to be an actor. I did a lot of drama and a lot of music, but it was just something for fun on the side. I was quite shy as a kid and I found a lot of freedom in performing. I never knew you could do it as a job.
If you're a classical actor, every Shakespearean part you play, you then say, 'McKellen did it this way,' and, 'Jacobi did it this way.' There's a whole list of Oliviers and people, whether you play Hamlet or Richard II or Richard III, any of those roles. And I found that a bit when I did 'La Cage.' It didn't bother me one bit.
My parents weren't involved in show business, but my parents would show me. We'd watch old films in the house. Little film festivals of Westerns and stuff like that when I was a kid. I knew I wanted to be those guys in those movies before I knew what being an actor was.
The director is the most important because, ultimately, as an actor, when you watch a movie, it looks like an actor is giving a performance, and they kind of are. But, what's actually happening is that an actor has given a bunch of ingredients over to a director, who then constructs a performance. That's movie-making.
I love the acting community at Cambridge. It's really quite committed and serious, since the days of Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen right through to Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie.
It took a while to decide I wanted to do Hamlet. It wasn't that I was daunted - I'd been acting professionally since my mid-20s and had some pretty big Shakespearean roles under my belt by that stage, at 32: Petruchio in 'The Taming of the Shrew,' Edgar in 'King Lear,' Antony, Richard III. But when it came to Hamlet, I hesitated.
When I was 2 my mom said she knew I was going to be a singer. I`ve been performing ever since I was a young kid. So I`ve known I wanted to do this for awhile. I always knew in my heart that I`d be singing.
The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras.
What actor doesn't want to walk around a set and be called 'Mr. President?' Playing POTUS is a kind of rite of passage among American actors - our version of playing Hamlet.
Every evening, I would excuse myself from playing in the backyard and go inside to watch the evening news... I wanted to get out there and see the world, and as a kid, I knew that Peter Jennings had a thirst and hunger to travel the world, too.
I would say that I am proud of my performance from Cracker and I think a lot of that was due to the writing was just so good. It's so rare that you get such good writing these days but it was awhile ago.
Pretty much every show that comes on, I'll try to watch at least one episode of it. For me, there are three different levels. I watch the first episode, and if I love it, I'm lockin' it in for the rest of the season. If I'm not too sure about it, I will maybe tune in the next week. It it's just terrible, then I'm done.
Initially I started in theatre as a Shakespearean actress before film and television. I've always been an artistic child growing up and I knew I wanted to act for as long as I can remember.
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