Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

There's magic to be mined in mistakes.

it’s not about being childish – that’s different – it’s being childlike, maintaining your sense of wonder.

Just because somebody says something about your character doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. You certainly don't have to come on and live up to those expectations. What someone says can often reveal more about the speaker than the subject.

[Judi Dench, referring to departed colleagues] Where are all those people? Can't believe it. How can it happen? They were so alive and -- so present, so vital. That's why we have to love the now, haven't we? Try not to live in the future. [Brendan O'Hea] Or the past. [JD} Well, you have to live a little in the past, because it's part of us, it's who we are. But don't -dwell- in the past. God, we should make the best of every single second we have.

The word ‘play’ is at the heart of what we do as actors – players putting on plays by playwrights in playhouses for playgoers. Play is everything.

There’s no right way of performing Shakespeare. And that’s why the plays are still being done.

Status is created by other people's attitude towards you. Titania has a retinue and it's the people around her that give her the status. It's like--was it Tyrone Guthrie who said it to Ian Holm when he was playing Henry V? 'Don't let anyone come within four feet of you.' It's all to do with how other people act in relation to you. That's what gives you the power.

[About Lady M and Macbeth] I mean, they've got what they've wanted--they've fought for this: he's King, she's Queen. But somehow the gap between them is widening and widening. Where there was once passion and conspiracy and closeness, suddenly--whoosh--it's gone. She's looking at someone who she doesn't know any more. He's away--miles away. Oh God.

Love all, trust a few / Do wrong to none.

We’re custodians of the language. Just for a little while.

But there are some sonnets I’d simply rather not commit to memory – such as Sonnet 60: ‘Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, / So do our minutes hasten to their end’. It’s too full of existential despair. I kept thinking of it during lockdown – the wasted days, wasted friends, the relentless futility of it all.

Never trust a man who when left alone in a room with a tea cosy doesn’t try it on.

Adrenaline is the petrol. If there’s no fear, it’s not worth it.

There’s magic to be mined in mistakes.

Tis in my memory locked, / And you yourself shall keep the key of it.