Quotes from Ben Kingsley

There have not been any troughs as regards my work. There's never been a trough of my assurance.

I don't honestly think people know what acting is.

The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.

I'm very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour.

But comedy I'd love to do as much as humanly possible.

I think Romeo and Juliet is uplifting. That's how much a son wishes to avenge his father. That is how much two young people can love each other.

Filming is so much to do with rhythm, as is music, and if it isn't there then you know in the end nobody can save it really, they can't.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

I think that all of us either lose touch with the child inside us or try and hold onto it because it so precious to us and it's such an extraordinary part of our lives.

I think that most actors, and they're a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child.

Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence.

Sometimes it's right to do the wrong things and right now is one of those times.

John Lennon and Ringo Starr liked my songs. I used to write songs and they heard me sing songs on stage in London.

In England, it's now Sir Ben. Mister has just disappeared. It's not even on my passport anymore. They've taken Mister away from me.

That hunger of the flesh, that longing for ease, that terror of incarceration, that insistence on tribal honour being obeyed: all of that exists, and it exists everywhere.

The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age.

I just loved playing a man who was unafraid of making an idiot of himself in the process of falling in love. I found that admirable.

Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic.

I have a rather naive approach, I think, to my job.

Somewhere in your career, your work changes. It becomes less anal, less careful and more spontaneous, more to do with the information that your soul carries.

The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!

I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can't because they can't face it.

The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.

When I choose a role it's either because I recognise the man, or that I'm very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don't play him.