Ben Kingsley Quotes

I think the cinema you like has more to do with silence, and the theater you like has more to do with language.

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.

You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.

The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age.

Family is family over the internet, over Skype, over the telephone. Love is love. You don't have to actually go through some ritual to prove that you love somebody.

I think the actor has a tribal role as the archetypal story teller. I think there was a time when the storyteller, the priest, the healer, were all one person in one body. That person used to weave stories at night around a small fire to keep the tribe from being terrified that sun had gone down.

You can throw away the privilege of acting, but that would be such a shame. The tribe has elected you to tell its story. You are the shaman/healer, that's what the storyteller is, and I think it's important for actors to appreciate that. Too often actors think it's all about them, when in reality it's all about the audience being able to recognize themselves in you. The more you pull away from the public, the less power you have on screen.

Sometimes it's right to do the wrong things and right now is one of those times.

I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can't because they can't face it.

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.

Equal partners aren't always what we envision as being manifestly equal. Equality can come in many different shapes and sizes and combinations.

I love storytelling. If you strip all the bits away, what you'll find at the center is a storyteller. As I warm to my career and love it more, I have a sense that storytelling is healing, in many ways. You can reach an audience and heal, and by heal, I mean entertain and provoke. It's a wonderful life.

I don't want to be like the actor who rehearses everything in the bathroom, then comes to the set and carries on completely uninterrupted while the other actors tiptoe away. I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives. I feed off that and work off that. I don't like to be too prepared, no. However we define too prepared, if I feel it's getting that way, then I'll back off. My line-learning is very special. I like to learn the dialogue of the whole film before I arrive.

In cinema, the leading player is the director.

I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.

That hunger of the flesh, that longing for ease, that terror of incarceration, that insistence on tribal honour being obeyed: all of that exists, and it exists everywhere.

I do remember, as a child, that I always imagined, when I was maybe 6 or 7, my fantasy was that everywhere I went I was being followed by an invisible film crew.

If it's a really well written villain, he probably has more layers than the archetypal good person. So that would be very attractive to an actor. No one chooses to be a villain; it's usually a reaction to something else.

I think that all of us either lose touch with the child inside us or try and hold onto it because it so precious to us and it's such an extraordinary part of our lives.

They're a very strange lot actors, very strange people.

I'm convinced that had I not changed my name, I don't think I would have had quite the same career curve that I eventually had.

In order to inhabit a villain, you mustn't care what the audience think of you. That's not why you are there. You mustn't care for a second whether the audience likes you or dislikes you. Your villain has to be way beyond that.

I think that most actors, and they're a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child.

There is always something about the villains that I'm able to play, quote unquote, that isn't villainous.

I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives.