Quotes from Nigel Hawthorne

I am 65 now and the world is just ahead of me at a time when most people are retiring.

I don't have the vocal dexterity, nor do I have the desire to put myself in among the giants.

I used to bury myself in character parts and put on a lot of makeup and use a lot of props. At first I thought it was clever to put on false noses and to do funny voices, but then I suddenly thought, no, that's wrong, you don't do it from the outside, you work from within.

I started to admit vulnerabilities and things that I was trying to hide before. Shyness, anxiety, guilt and all those things that I have in me are now quite freely shown.

I think you start in middle life to recognize your vulnerabilities, if you're lucky. You admit them and people find that interesting.

I've never been afraid of being vulnerable on stage. It's a large part of life, and I think it's being dishonest to disallow an audience to see that side.

The best way to get people to accept you is to move about the community and show them there's nothing to be afraid of.

My father was a doctor. I've never been very warm towards doctors.

I was always a supporting actor. It is nice to know one has the equipment to be a leading actor.

Surprise! Surprise! An Academy Award nomination and suddenly you're outed? Did I mind? Oh, very, very much.

I'm not a big classical actor.

I do a play a year, or every 18 months, and you get your comedies and your dramas, but you hardly get anything that touches some kind of core in you.

I'm very pernickety about cast and make-up. Continuity things can go dreadfully wrong in film; the beards are different, red waistcoats become blue.

I did what every other actor did: there were agents all the way up the Charing Cross Road and up St. Martin's Lane, and I would go out each day and do the agents - walk into these buildings, along their corridors, bang on these doors and say, 'Anything today?'

When you set yourself up to be apart from rest of mankind, you're in danger of crashing further than they ever could. That's the trouble with royalty, after all.

Clint Eastwood was a most delightful man to work with.

Acting gives me the opportunity to be fascinating on stage or, I suppose; properly speaking, pretend to be fascinating.

I know people say plays are only an evening's entertainment. But you can make it mean a lot to the audience, even a farce or comedy.

I had no financial support from my parents, but, I suppose, I did have moral support - although they really didn't know what was going on.

I'm very lucky in that my feet are firmly on the ground.

My private life has never been a secret. I've never been a closet queen.

I feel that too much fuss is made about being gay.

Trevor and I had been going to awards ceremonies for years. People knew. Look, if you don't get married by age 65, people know something's up.

I'm getting better, but I used to pull away from emotion, and from people.