Quotes About Iago

When I was in high school, the drama teacher picked me to play Iago in 'Othello.'

Both Othello and Iago seem a bit cracked. If you spend 15 years being responsible for death and destruction, that sense of suppressed horror is strong.

Iago's soliloquy - the motive-hunting of a motiveless malignity - how awful it is!

But yet the pity of it, Iago! O! Iago, the pity of it, Iago!

I am glad I have found this napkin. This was her first remembrance from the Moor, My wayward husband hath a hundred times Wooed me to steal it, but she so loves the token— For he conjured her she should ever keep it— That she reserves it evermore about her To kiss and talk to. I'll ha' the work ta'en out, And give't Iago. What he will do with it, Heaven knows, not I. I nothing, but to please his fantasy.

Much later, reflecting on Iago's dictum, "Put money in thy purse" she noted rather wryly, "I live on the capital of my mind").

You can't get any more evil than Iago or Richard III. Those guys are bad.

The last speech [Iago's soliloquy], the motivehunting of a motiveless malignity—how awful!

It has been said that if the protagonists of Hamlet and Othello were reversed, there would have been no tragedy: Hamlet would have seen through Iago in no time and Othello would not have hesitated to kill King Claudius.

Iago is one of the most liked characters in Shakespeare's canon, and he's the most evil, most extraordinarily manipulative person in history. He says the worst, most politically incorrect things, even for the time the play is set in - and yet audiences adore that character.

I think, the first time I played Iago at the Public Theater, I realized I had a - much to my chagrin - I realized I had an instinct for these conflicted characters, for these torn characters, for these characters who could be described as evil. I wouldn't describe them that way.

According to the myth, Prometheus steal fire to free us; Iago steals us as fresh fodder for the fire.

The most interesting characters keep us hooked. Not likeable ones! Iago, Shylock, Darth Vader - are they likeable? Do you want to invite them to dinner?

I'd like to do more Shakespeare. I'd like to do Iago in Othello. I look so benign. It would be interesting to see that black evil come out of my soul.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much, said Iago. Methinks the lady protests just the right amount, said Emilia. Methinks the lady is just getting fucking started protesting.

Othello, we are told by Iago, is not a Muslim, but a Christian, but, you know, he might be a secret Muslim. I mean, he's so African looking, and he has that funny name . . . Yeah, I went there.

Oh, not tonight, good Iago," said Cassio. "I have poor and unhappy brains for drinking. I wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.

Shakespeare's Iago could be played as a soul in hell, driven, dark and desperate, willing to do anything, willing to use anyone, in order to escape from that hell.

'Othello' was my first Shakespearean discovery. I was obsessed with drama at school, and I studied the play for my English GCSE. Desdemona is the part that everyone wants, but Iago's wife Emilia is the one I've always been drawn to.

What makes Iago evil? Some people ask. I never ask.

As his wife, Emilia must know Iago better than anybody else. She does not know, any more than the others, that he is malevolent, but she does know that her husband is addicted to practical jokes. What Shakespeare gives us in Iago is a portrait of a practical joker of a peculiarly appalling kind, and perhaps the best way of approaching the play is by a general consideration of the Practical Joker.