Quotes from Sam Wanamaker

You can do something almost any minutes that will ruin you, no matter how good you have been.

When I first went to London to do a film in 1949, I naturally went to visit the site of the Globe. There was this small plaque on the side of a grimy brewery wall in a derelict alley near the riverfront. I was shocked.

When I was 15 years old, I saw my first production of a Shakespeare play at the British pavilion at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago.

Frankly, the British always looked at this as a dumpy industrial area, but this was where Shakespeare lived and wrote and performed some of his greatest works.

The only thing that I can contribute as director is to work with the performers in a way that brings out the drama.

I've lived in London more or less permanently since the 1950s.

My middle daughter is with the Royal Shakespeare Company and was on Broadway several years ago.

I had been in 760 performances of 10 different Shakespeare plays by the time I was 17.

People constantly express surprise that Americans are so hot for Shakespeare. But Britain's culture is American culture, too.

Shakespeare is, after all, Britain's greatest poet and dramatist.

England is a mecca for actors who want to do the classics.

That first replica of the Globe that I saw at the Chicago World's Fair was a suspect thing, made of plywood and papier-mache. But I kept seeing other replicas at other fairs in the '30s, so I developed a longing to see London.

Through the years, I had became involved with social and political issues, such as racial discrimination.

I am kind of a curiosity in England.

I mean, the Globe is the most famous theater in the western world. The British have absolutely neglected it. It's an embarrassment to them that they haven't done anything about it.

Since the theater is going to be reconstructed in the techniques of joinery craftsmanship as it was before, it will take longer to make. It will be a complex of buildings, not just the Globe, with a major permanent exhibition of the Elizabethan theater.

In my teens, I saw a terrible production of 'Die Walkuere.' To a person of 15, it was just awful, and it put me off for many years. Eventually I became an opera-goer, if not an opera buff.

It's very difficult to know exactly what a major audience is going to respond to. 'We know they respond to certain personalities. That has been proven by the success of certain people in television who have gone from show to show and carried an audience with them. Apart from that, it's very hard to say what formula works.

I became a producer because of projects I wanted to pursue and develop as a director or actor.

It's true that I have sacrificed certain jobs, and it's been a matter of fitting my career into the Globe rather than the other way around.

Of course, the Globe will be an international educational center as well as a theater.

What would the world say if the Globe, now that it has at last been found, is not excavated?

Most Britons, and most Americans as well, either thought the Globe was in Stratford-Upon-Avon or didn't know where it was at all.

The physical nature of the Globe is going to break down a lot of barriers.