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" When I left Cambridge, I applied to regional repertory theaters in the U.K. and got accepted by one of them... And here I am, still at it. "

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" If I have any audience, they can know that anything I am in, I would go see, with the expectation of being really satisfied. "

" The most likely explanation is the most practical. 'Macbeth' is a very popular play with audiences. If you want to sell out a theater, just mount a production of 'Macbeth'. It's a short play, it's an exciting play, it's easy to understand, and it attracts great acting. "

" I think with Shakespeare you can be required to do absolutely anything at the turn of a sixpence - suddenly you go into a battle, suddenly you utter something passionate. "

" I headed out to have a breather at the stage door, dressed in my tramp costume. I had my bowler hat between my feet and there were passers-by, and one of them turned back and said, 'Do you need help, brother?' And $1 fell into my hat! "

" What's upsetting about an autobiography is that the final chapter is always missing. I mean, you want the death, don't you? "

" When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality. "

" On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact. "

" There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company. "

" I often get mistaken for Dumbledore. One wizard is very much like another. "

" I got better as an actor, and still I'm getting better. That's only been possible because there's always been work. "

" The wonderful thing about modern medicine is that so many of these complaints that used to signify old age and decline can be coped with. "

" So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor? "

" 'King Lear,' I've been seeing all my life. I mean, the great actors of my lifetime... to join their company, as it were, by playing a part that's challenged them, is one of the great joys of being an actor who does the classics. "

" I used to comfort myself when I became an actor that it was a useful job, entertaining people. And it was important to do it as well as you possibly can. "

" There is a fantasy as old as the modern gay rights movement that if all our skins turned lavender overnight, the majority, confounded by our numbers and our diversity, and recognising a few of our faces, would at once let go of prejudice forevermore. "

" Very, very rare that you do a job knowing that the audience is desperate for you to do that job. Most films you make don't get released, is the fact. "

" I'm the sort of person who doesn't write in ink. I only write in pencil, so it can be rubbed out. "

" I love musicals; I love the ballet, opera, the circus. It's all performance to me. "

" When I came out, I told my stepmother Gladys, and she just said she had known for years and was glad I wasn't lying anymore. "

" Gandalf's a good guy, and it's a good part. He says the right things, he believes the right things. An actor can have fun with it. "

" I'm brilliant at cooking my stepmother's scrambled egg recipe. The secret is to put eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning together in the saucepan, and to keep stirring with a wooden spoon under a low heat until the preferred consistency is reached. "

" The BAFTAs give the British point of view, and the Oscars give the American point of view, but the truth is we're all working in an international industry. "

" It's nice for me to be in touch with a younger generation. "

" I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing. "

" I'm an eccentric English actor, and there's a lot of us around. "

" Before I ever acted as an amateur - which I did a great deal at school and at university - I used to go to the theater with my parents in the north of England, where I was born and brought up... Theater of all sorts. "

" The huge difference in my lifetime is that you can just go up to somebody and make a pass. You couldn't do that in the 1950s if you were gay. There were secret handshakes, a secret language. There was nowhere you could go to be romantic outside of people's houses. "

" Magneto wants to cope with the difficulties thrust upon him by society and by his own nature. "

" Theatre is relatively easy if you're British - you're living in the theatre capital of the world, London - there are so many places you can work, still. If I had begun to think of myself as a film actor, I think I would have got distracted. "

" I owe a great deal to Harold Hobson, doyen drama critic of the 'U.K. Sunday Times,' who championed me as Shakespeare's Richard II at the 1969 Edinburgh Festival. "