Derek Jacobi Quotes

37 quotes in 650 categories

• We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has…
• Real-life people are often the hardest to play, people that you recreate who have actually lived, because you have to live up to people's knowledge…
• There's never been any game plan or thread through my career. It's just happened that I've ricocheted from one interesting character to another.
• Ultimately it's a leap of faith and a leap of imagination to put yourself back in time into those conditions and situations and see how…
• It's too hard a life for me. I could only do it - check out in that sense - if I checked out somewhere that…
• Sir Larry could be very strict and a disciplinarian, too. He had many faces; he wore many hats. But, ultimately, he loved the theater and…
• Actors, I don't think, ever really grow up. I'm hoping that that rejuvenating process applies to me, too. It has so far. I've been very…
• I had to think long and hard about what it would imply, what it would mean. Would it mean any alterations of one's lifestyle? Or,…
• I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're…
• I never lose that terror of 'this is my last job, I'll never work again.' You can never relax and rely on whatever reputation you've…
• Every person who is offered a knighthood has the opportunity to say yes or no. You get a letter from the Prime Minister saying you've…
• I am an actor and I live in the world of pretend in my working capacity. I live in the world of my imagination.
• I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought, 'Well if acting doesn't work…
• I think that each character has fascinated and interested me enough to want to play him.
• I would like to be as fit as I've always been. I've been blessed with good health, I've been blessed with stamina. Particularly for those…
• I'm always conscious of the fact that I am part of a profession that is 80% permanently unemployed. So, to be working in any sense…
• I've been a professional actor now for 38 years. A long time. And it's wonderful to earn your living doing something that you love. To…
• You have to get through the Hamlet hoop as a young actor. Your classical qualifications are based on the quality of your Hamlet. And then,…
• Reputation is fine but you have to keep justifying it. In a sense, it makes it harder because people's expectations of you are higher. So,…
• It's often difficult to slough off all that we've acquired, all the comforts and safety nets modern life provides for us, and realize that in…

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