Quotes from Steven Berkoff

Art is a way of penetrating and going deep into our unconscious and creating amazing worlds - as the Greeks did, if you like, as did Ovid with his stories and his fantasies.

When I write about working-class people, I do so in ways that reveal them at their absolute, magnificent worst.

Everyone remembers the bad guy long after they've seen the movie.

Transgender casting is a kind of literalism. It is the same with racial casting. This means that you can now only play Othello if you are black. There is something quite tainted about it. It is a form of racism in itself.

You are treated like a cog in a machine. The director might be obsessing so much with the stunts that he doesn't notice your performance, and the producer may just be an insane money man, but I have no snobbery about the movies.

I like a lot of international people. Julie Taymore, the American director - she's one of the most exciting directors I've seen.

A knighthood would be a bit too much. An OBE or an MBE or whatever they are called, one of those would be more elegant.

When I ascended from the depths of the working class to the middle class, the higher I got, the more dishonesty I found.

If you want to be an actor, you must have total, ruthless commitment to your art. Don't be ambitious for fame or TV or movies. Art is a jealous mistress and will brook no competitors. Study all the time. Never stop reading. Never stop learning speeches. It will fill you up - define and refine you.

There's a lot of talk about people being abused on Twitter, women being savagely insulted and degraded. I think, 'Why get into that in the first place?' If I jump into a garbage bin, I can't complain that I've got rubbish all over me.

With the feminist movement - a good movement which I support - there's been more overt criticism of the male, an attitude that men are failing to understand the finer nature of women, failing to appreciate their needs, failing to support them, failing to be compassionate.

When I have criticism that I feel is unfair, the rejection does disturb me, but it also strengthens me. I used to get turned down for all sorts of jobs. I used to writhe in pain, but then I would say, 'Good. Good. I will get stronger for this.'

British culture loves the image of itself in the mirror; it doesn't want to look deep inside, behind the eyes, inside the brain, inside where those shivers and nightmares lie.

My first name used to be Leslie. I snipped that off and put my middle name, which was Steven, in the front.

My earliest memory is of my first day at primary school and the distress of seeing my mother part from me.And being in a room full of strangers - of aliens. I felt that I would never see her again.

My mother was almost entirely responsible for my cultural education. She took me to the library once a week, and by the age of seven, I was reading 100 books a year.

A great opera house isn't run by a director, but by a great administrator.

Writing is an antidote for loneliness.

When I started studying acting, I was enamoured of actors who used movement to enhance the language.

I find it very satisfying to write because you can purge many things and vent what you feel under the mask of fiction.

I've played a lot of bad guys in my time, especially in movies. It's delightful playing the villain. It's almost the most interesting and most complicated role in a film.

When I wrote 'East,' I wanted a completely earthy, very sexy, very violent play, so I wrote in verse. I found it not only satisfying but releasing. It gave me an opportunity to play with language. We never played the characters like the yobs that they are, but rather in a slightly heightened way.