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.
BEN KINGSLEYIf I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.
More Ben Kingsley Quotes
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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.
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As an actor there’s no autonomy, unless you’re prepared to risk the possibility of starving.
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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.
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If your best friend has stolen your girlfriend, it does become life and death.
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I don’t honestly think people know what acting is.
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As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I’d still be alive by now.
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I hope I’m able to achieve more on camera through stillness, through focus, through being quite careful to do less on every take, rather than more. So I’m reducing, rather than adding. Which hopefully is a good exercise. That’s what I’d like to do.
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I think I’m more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary destinies.
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It’s Sir Ben. I’ve not been a Mister for two years.
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But comedy I’d love to do as much as humanly possible.
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All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.
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You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.
BEN KINGSLEY -
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.
BEN KINGSLEY -
If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.
BEN KINGSLEY -
I’m very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour.
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I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.
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There is always something about the villains that I’m able to play, quote unquote, that isn’t villainous.
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I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.
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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.
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When I choose a role it’s either because I recognise the man, or that I’m very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don’t play him.
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We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors-if they’re good actors.
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Well, it’s wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
BEN KINGSLEY