Ben Kingsley Quotes

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.

I think the cinema you like has more to do with silence, and the theater you like has more to do with language.

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.

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.

With narration, you have to be very accurate with your voice. It's a good exercise to do.

Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.

Equal partners aren't always what we envision as being manifestly equal. Equality can come in many different shapes and sizes and combinations.

They're a very strange lot actors, very strange people.

I do remember, as a child, that I always imagined, when I was maybe 6 or 7, my fantasy was that everywhere I went I was being followed by an invisible film crew.

You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.

In cinema, the leading player is the director.

The leaping Jaguar on the bonnet, to me, makes it look more like a hunter than something that is getting away. It's a hunter. Richard III definitely would have had a chauffeur driven Jaguar MK X.

As a singer, I might have fallen among thieves. I wonder if I'd still be alive by now.

Sometimes it's right to do the wrong things and right now is one of those times.

As an actor there's no autonomy, unless you're prepared to risk the possibility of starving.

The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age.

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.

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.

I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can't because they can't face it.

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.

I would like to make it known, on this program, loud and clear, that I would absolutely embrace with all five of my arms being a Bond villain.

Filming is so much to do with rhythm, as is music, and if it isn't there then you know in the end nobody can save it really, they can't.

All the great writers root their characters in true human behaviour.

There have not been any troughs as regards my work. There's never been a trough of my assurance.

I'm very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour.

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.

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.

The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.

But filming is good for you, because the crew isn't allowed to laugh. You can't get addicted to getting the laugh.

If your best friend has stolen your girlfriend, it does become life and death.

When Attenborough asked me to do Gandhi it was almost like stepping off one boat and stepping on to another, even though both boats are going at 60 miles per hour.

But comedy I'd love to do as much as humanly possible.

John Lennon and Ringo Starr liked my songs. I used to write songs and they heard me sing songs on stage in London.

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.

I honestly have no strategy whatsoever. I'm waiting for that script to pop through the letterbox and completely surprise me.

I think Romeo and Juliet is uplifting. That's how much a son wishes to avenge his father. That is how much two young people can love each other.

I don't honestly think people know what acting is.

The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.

I have a rather naive approach, I think, to my job.

I think I'm more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary destinies.

It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity.

Millions of children are disempowered and we need to empower them.

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.

I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.

There's so much crap talked about acting.

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.

I always try to find something I admire about every character I play.

I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.

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.

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.