Quotes from Michael Gambon

I live in fear of being a contented passenger. I'd rather get parts I can't play.

Paul Schofield said something like, 'If I'm not acting in a play, I don't really exist.' Those weren't the exact words, but he meant it's only when I'm acting in a play that I've got something to say about the world. And then why should I talk, when people can come to see it?

I like causing trouble. It's the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff. Does that make sense?

Certainly, I seem to need to do a play a year. I feel wrong if I haven't got one planned.

Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films.

I don't play classical guitar. But I do in my mind. I've got it on a stand.

I'd love to be a comedian. I've done a lot, but always in the confines of plays.

My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day.

I have been in five Harry Potter films and never read a 'Harry Potter' book. If you are an actor, all you have is the script you are given. If you read the book, you might get disappointed about what's been left out.

A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.

When I was doing 'Tales from Hollywood' at the National, I was invited to dinner by the choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan. He told me I had the heart of a dancer and asked me if I'd like to come on at the end of 'Romeo and Juliet' as a friar. I said I'd love to, but sadly, MacMillan died shortly after.

I just hate the idea of being well known. I know that is almost impossible if you're an actor who has done okay, but I've always fought against it.

I can't remember any of the films I've done. You go from one to another, and they all blend in to a big mass. You remember the costumes because you remember how you felt - that Western I did with Kevin Costner where I wore the big hat and the two guns, I remember that.

I fell in love with Alan Ayckbourn the day I met him and, starting with 'The Norman Conquests,' went on to do eight plays with him. He tells you just what you want to know and has a brilliant way of solving problems.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

I find it difficult to remember lines. When I'm doing a long speech for television, I sometimes have an earpiece with someone feeding me the text. But I can get by in the theatre if I study hard for a couple of months.

I see film roles as lovely presents that come along now and again. I feel really lucky and say thank you very much. And if they fly me to L.A., I think, 'God, I must really be doing well.' I've worked with De Niro and Brando and Pacino, and that's made me feel very lucky. But the films have never meant a lot to me.

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

I am a theatre actor, but the last ten years I've taken parts in movies because it keeps me in money.

I've played quite a lot of crooks and killers, and that's quite interesting. Then Dumbledore is the complete opposite, isn't he? He's a nice old man.

Theater actors are just tolerated. You have to be a movie star to be a celebrity.

I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

I sometimes think the theatre is more demanding because it requires things you don't have in films, like it requires you to make the people in the front row believe you and not look an idiot to them while the people right at the back can hear you.