Quotes from John Gielgud

You can be good in a good movie, you can be good in a bad movie, you can be bad in a bad movie, but never, ever, be bad in a good movie.

I'm sure there isn't an after-life. If there were, Ivor Novello would have got a message to us.

Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself.

N MY early boyhood I was enraptured by the great fairytale illustrators of the period: Arthur Rackham, Edmond Dulac, Kay Nielsen. As a schoolboy, I was to discover Aubrey Beardsley, and I was extremely fond of an edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream with most imaginative drawings by Heath Robinson,

I once tried to approach Akiro Kurosawa, but he never answered.

Richard II is something of a plaster saint and knows it only too well. But it is a rewarding part, with lovely things to say, and I thought it suited my personality.

Twice today I've got to play Hamlet, this great part that I shall never play again. And I can't do it today. I could do it tomorrow, or next week, but I can't do it now.

Caesar is not really very interesting: Cassius is the part. I

lago to amuse the audience, especially since Othello (like Macbeth) has no sense of humour.

I pride myself, after long experience, that I can begin and stop weeping at the exact points demanded in the script.

as there were no kind of sanitary facilities on the premises, the results were apt to be unsightly and demoralising, to say the least.

how important speed in scene-changes and economy of superfluous decoration was in mounting Shakespeare's plays to their best advantage,

I never saw a production at Stratford Ontario, Guthrie's own theatre, which he designed and developed from a tent and which was said to work wonderfully.

Acting is half shame, half glory. Shame at exhibiting yourself, glory when you can forget yourself.

Most of my friends seem to be either dead, extremely deaf or living on the wrong side of Kent.

I never accept lengthy film roles nowadays, because I am always so afraid I will die in the middle of shooting and cause such awful problems.

I am all in favour of spontaneity, providing it is carefully planned and ruthlessly controlled.