Ben Kingsley Quotes - Page 4

But comedy I'd love to do as much as humanly possible.

I always try to find something I admire about every character I play.

It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity.

I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen.

I told myself that I would not go back to the camps as an actor ever again, that I was very frightened of wearing a yellow star. It was fear, it was cowardice, I was.

If the director wishes to print it, then you have a series of choices, maybe millions of choices within that minute-and-a-half, or 80 seconds, or 2 minutes or however long or short the take is, you have all those choices committed to celluloid. I find that absolutely thrilling.

The number of choices you make in the event that you see on stage, those choices are sometimes largely determined by the rehearsal process and the experiments that you go through and the choices that you make in the rehearsal room, not in front of an audience.

Shock is shock. Your body goes into shock, regardless of it being real blood or fake blood. The mind sends powerful messages to all the various glands and secretions in the body. It's impossible trying to act it; it just happens. It's a very important question: no acting.

Well, it's wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.

John Lennon and Ringo Starr liked my songs. I used to write songs and they heard me sing songs on stage in London.

Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic.

There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word.

Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence.

I think Romeo and Juliet is uplifting. That's how much a son wishes to avenge his father. That is how much two young people can love each other.

I was fortunate as a young actor, to go straight to the RSC, where I learned that being an actor can bring with it wonderful responsibilities.

You need particular note or rhythm in the symphony to be that minor key, or that sharp key or major chord. In musical terms, I try to hit the right note. But not alter the score of the music, just emphasize the note correctly.

I'm open to any project, but my joyful projects are those through which I can say something and through which I can speak to the an audience of people in the world, and I can be that vehicle through which something can be said, I find that entirely thrilling and joyful.

I don't do anything that would ever come across as advice or suggestion, but it's just part of a debate. Like, "I would like to try this," or "Let me do another one with more stillness, let me emphasize that." Rather than "I think you should emphasize this, I think" - you know, I don't impose choices.

I want to play a man in uniform. I've got tremendous respect for that life that they lead. We know so little about it. It's never discussed or talked about, when they come back from battle. I want to examine the choices that have to be made in those terrible times. [...] I'll get to wear a uniform.

I never went to drama school. I went straight into the theater. We had the most extraordinary voice teacher. I worked with her when I was starting out in my career. How to place my voice from a very relaxed position was all wonderfully reminiscent of going back to the basics. But I always like to do that with any role that I do, to dismantle it and put it all back together again.

There are some directors, lesser in confidence or skill, who make the actor feel very uncomfortable because you feel you're auditioning for them, every day, and that's a terrible feeling on the set.

The environment forces you to be utterly dependent between "action" and "cut" because the environment is perfect on your fellow actor. So as an acting exercise, it's absolutely thrilling that the focus that we had to bring to each other echoed in life, echoed in art. And when you get that parallel, it's really thrilling and it's full of surprises, but it all has a logic.

My line-learning is very special. I like to learn the dialogue of the whole film before I arrive.