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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.

Ben Kingsley

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.
BEN KINGSLEY

Class Hierarchy London
There’s so much crap talked about acting.
BEN KINGSLEY

Acting Crap Talk
I would like to make it known, on this program, loud and clear, that I would absolutely embrace with all five of my arms being a Bond villain.
BEN KINGSLEY

Arms Embrace Villain
The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.
BEN KINGSLEY

May Pregnancy Together
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.
BEN KINGSLEY

Father Son Uplifting
My line-learning is very special. I like to learn the dialogue of the whole film before I arrive.
BEN KINGSLEY

Arrive Film Lines Special
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.
BEN KINGSLEY

Choices Long Wish
As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I’d still be alive by now.
BEN KINGSLEY

Alive Singers Thieves
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.
BEN KINGSLEY

Care Order Thinking
Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.
BEN KINGSLEY

Awards Let Go Wife
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.
BEN KINGSLEY

Camera Exercise Focus
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.
BEN KINGSLEY

Actor Attractive Layer Probably
If you are a libertine, if you’re not given to long-term faithful relationships, you tend to project your behavior onto everyone else. It’s like the person who knows they’re not trustworthy; they tend to mistrust everyone else.
BEN KINGSLEY

Faithful Long Trustworthy
What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it’s a science. It’s neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art.
BEN KINGSLEY

Art Fun Thinking
The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.
BEN KINGSLEY

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

Actors Charity Voice
I have a rather naive approach, I think, to my job.
BEN KINGSLEY

Approach Job Thinking
I just loved playing a man who was unafraid of making an idiot of himself in the process of falling in love. I found that admirable.
BEN KINGSLEY

Falling Idiot Love Men
I never read anything in print about me. It started with not reading reviews and with the greatest respect to my publicist here, I never read interviews. I was there when I gave them. I never read reviews. I was there when I did the jobs – so I’m totally immune. I live in a bubble.
BEN KINGSLEY

Interview Jobs Reading
I have never felt bereft of anything.
BEN KINGSLEY

Anything Bereft Felt
I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.
BEN KINGSLEY

Creative Creativity Trying
If your best friend has stolen your girlfriend, it does become life and death.
BEN KINGSLEY

Death Friendship Girlfriend Life
You don’t go to a town to present the play and have applause at the end of it, but that’s benign conquest. It’s a glorious way of exploring other landscapes and other cultures in a very life-affirming way.
BEN KINGSLEY

Culture Landscape Other Play
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

Fish Play Tank Three
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.
BEN KINGSLEY

Actors Responsibility Wonderful
Sometimes it’s right to do the wrong things and right now is one of those times.
BEN KINGSLEY

Reality Sometimes Truth
I don’t honestly think people know what acting is.
BEN KINGSLEY

Acting People Thinking

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Kingsley Quotes