Michael Gambon Quotes

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre’s going to finish me off.

Yeah, I like causing trouble. It’s the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff.

There’s no subtext in Harry Potter really; it’s all magic, anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it’s a magic spell. It’s quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it.

There were no spells at my school, just a smack in the mouth.

Television has dried up for my generation, so it’s plays and films.

Richard was in heavy, heavy costume, he could hardly sit, you know, and I turned up and they put me in two layers of silk, so I played him much lighter – you know, floating around in a pair of slippers, a bit of a hippy.

Paul Schofield said something like, ‘If I’m not acting in a play, I don’t really exist.’ Those weren’t the exact words, but he meant it’s only when I’m acting in a play that I’ve got something to say about the world. And then why should I talk, when people can come to see it?

Oh yeah, I’d love to be a comedian. I’ve done a lot, but always in the confines of plays.

I’ve always tried to be an actor who… I just plod on and try to keep my mouth shut, mind my own business. I find the whole thing about people’s lives… I can’t understand it. I’m always astonished that people want to know anything about me.

I’m very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There’s nothing so beautiful.

I’m an anorak. I’ve always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

I live in fear of being a contented passenger. I’d rather get parts I can’t play.

I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.

I just play him as myself, I don’t ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

I just hate the idea of being well known. I know that is almost impossible if you’re an actor who has done okay, but I’ve always fought against it.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

I am a theatre actor, but the last ten years I’ve taken parts in movies because it keeps me in money.

Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.

A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.