Quotes from Michael Gambon

I've always tried to be an actor who... I just plod on and try to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business. I find the whole thing about people's lives... I can't understand it. I'm always astonished that people want to know anything about me.

Yeah, 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.

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

I want to be good all the time, so I feel anxious. But if you weren't like that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? If you went out happy down the road, la la la. I've never been like that. I don't want to be.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

Richard was in heavy, heavy costume, he could hardly sit, you know, and I turned up and they put me in two layers of silk, so I played him much lighter - you know, floating around in a pair of slippers, a bit of a hippy.

Maybe that is why kids like Dumbledore: because he is funny rather than a miserable old sod with a long white beard.

There were certainly no spells at my school. More like a smack in the mouth.

There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films. You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

People should be shrouded in mystery. Especially actors. No, hang on, maybe actors should be blown up.

The theatre starts every night at half past seven, and I like the rhythm of going to the theatre, parking the car, going to the stage door; I've grown up with all of that. I'd love to do more theatre - I mean, I shouldn't be telling the world that I can't remember lines any more, but I find it more and more difficult, so I don't know.

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.

There's no subtext in 'Harry Potter,' really; it's all magic - anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it. Doesn't say much for acting, does it?

There are more important ways of earning a living, aren't there? Like being a neurosurgeon. But some plays are very important, aren't they?

There's no subtext in Harry Potter really; it's all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.