Quote

If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.

Ben Kingsley

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Ben Kingsley
Age: 80
Born: 1943
Born: December 31
Actor
Character Actor
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Snainton
North Yorkshire
Krishna Pandit Bhanji
Three
Fish
Play
Fishes
Going
Performance
Chip
Work
Performances
Chips
Would
Months
Shop
Somebody
Ran
Help
Shops
Helping
Staring

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Well, it's wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.
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Family is family over the internet, over Skype, over the telephone. Love is love. You don't have to actually go through some ritual to prove that you love somebody.
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I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives.
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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.
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In order to inhabit a villain, you mustn't care what the audience think of you. That's not why you are there. You mustn't care for a second whether the audience likes you or dislikes you. Your villain has to be way beyond that.
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There's so much crap talked about acting.
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Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence.
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We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors-if they're good actors.
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One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.
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I told myself that I would not go back to the camps as an actor ever again, that I was very frightened of wearing a yellow star. It was fear, it was cowardice, I was.
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I was fortunate as a young actor, to go straight to the RSC, where I learned that being an actor can bring with it wonderful responsibilities.
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The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.
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Hopefully, as I get older in the business, I make my choices more accurately, and I perhaps know from either the script or the first meeting that it isn't going to work.
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I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen.
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You don't go to a town to present the play and have applause at the end of it, but that's benign conquest. It's a glorious way of exploring other landscapes and other cultures in a very life-affirming way.
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I'm convinced that had I not changed my name, I don't think I would have had quite the same career curve that I eventually had.
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I don't do anything that would ever come across as advice or suggestion, but it's just part of a debate. Like, I would like to try this, or Let me do another one with more stillness, let me emphasize that. Rather than I think you should emphasize this, I think - you know, I don't impose choices.
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