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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.

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
Roles
Either
Better
Play
Recognise
Men
Curious
Neither
Role
Choose

More quotes by Ben Kingsley

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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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But filming is good for you, because the crew isn't allowed to laugh. You can't get addicted to getting the laugh.
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Millions of children are disempowered and we need to empower them.
Ben Kingsley
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I think the cinema you like has more to do with silence, and the theater you like has more to do with language.
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Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.
Ben Kingsley
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There is so much to do on a film set. It is an extraordinarily invigorating and wonderful place to be, when things are running well.
Ben Kingsley
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There is always something about the villains that I'm able to play, quote unquote, that isn't villainous.
Ben Kingsley
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What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it's a science. It's neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art.
Ben Kingsley
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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.
Ben Kingsley
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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.
Ben Kingsley
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I've met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.
Ben Kingsley
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I don't want to be like the actor who rehearses everything in the bathroom, then comes to the set and carries on completely uninterrupted while the other actors tiptoe away.
Ben Kingsley
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As an actor there's no autonomy, unless you're prepared to risk the possibility of starving.
Ben Kingsley
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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.
Ben Kingsley
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I didn't go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey.
Ben Kingsley
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I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things.
Ben Kingsley
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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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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.
Ben Kingsley
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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.
Ben Kingsley
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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.
Ben Kingsley