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"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."
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Exlpore more Acting quotes
"Man is a make-believe animal: he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part."
"My approach to acting is that I am totally intuitive. I read the script and I get it. If I don't get it, I can't do it."
"I am acquainted with no immaterial sensuality so delightful as good acting."
"There is more good writing and good acting in any ten minutes of Twister than in, say, all of Citizen Kane."
"Acting is something different to everybody. I just know that if you watch an actor or actress getting better and better, I think that's them just understanding themselves better and better."
"Acting is easier than skating in a way and harder in other aspects. In skating, you get one chance, and with acting you get to do it over and over."
"Earlier, I used to charge territories instead of my fees as an actor, but I realised it was better to keep the two apart. Now, I take my fees in cash, for acting, and keep the distribution thing separate."
Explore more quotes by Ian McKellen
"You always think that 70 is the end of the road: 'Somebody died when they were 73; good life'. You're closer to death, and you better make sure you don't waste too much of your time doing things you don't want to do. No point in saying things you don't believe in."
"I can't take on all the worries of the world, you know. I can only talk about being gay and being an actor. I'll have to leave those other battles to somebody else."
"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!"
"I was brought up in industrial south Lancashire, down the cobbled road from where LS Lowry (1887-1976) lived and painted."
"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 tend to discourage people from calling me 'Sir Ian,' because I don't like being separated out from the rest of the population. Of course, it can be useful if you're writing an official letter, like trying to get a visa or something passed through Parliament. They're impressed by these things."
"There are not many things in my life I can be absolutely proud of or certain I got right, but one of them is that I've got better as an actor. I've learnt how to do it. And I still have enough energy to do it."
"Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: 'I'm waiting to win the lottery. I'm waiting to fall in love'. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came."
"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?"
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