Michael Gambon Quotes

All actors say they're concerned about the state of the theatre, but what they're really concerned about is that there'll be less work around. ~ Michael Gambon

I had a great start in television; the first thing I did was an episode of 'Performance' called 'The Entertainer' with Michael Gambon playing Archie Rice. ~ Helen McCrory

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. Doesn't say much for acting, does it? ~ Michael Gambon

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. ~ Michael Gambon

I want to be good all the time, so I feel anxious. But if you weren't like that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? If you went out happy down the road, la la la. I've never been like that. I don't want to be. ~ Michael Gambon

Maybe that is why kids like Dumbledore: because he is funny rather than a miserable old sod with a long white beard. ~ Michael Gambon

I've had a private pilot's license for years and flown all round the U.K. and over to France. ~ Michael Gambon

I don't play classical guitar. But I do in my mind. I've got it on a stand. ~ Michael Gambon

I've played quite a lot of crooks and killers, and that's quite interesting. Then Dumbledore is the complete opposite, isn't he? He's a nice old man. ~ Michael Gambon

I can't remember any of the films I've done. You go from one to another, and they all blend in to a big mass. You remember the costumes because you remember how you felt - that Western I did with Kevin Costner where I wore the big hat and the two guns, I remember that. ~ Michael Gambon

I live in fear of being a contented passenger. I'd rather get parts I can't play. ~ Michael Gambon

I see film roles as lovely presents that come along now and again. I feel really lucky and say thank you very much. And if they fly me to L.A., I think, 'God, I must really be doing well.' I've worked with De Niro and Brando and Pacino, and that's made me feel very lucky. But the films have never meant a lot to me. ~ Michael Gambon

I'm having my lunch when I hear a familiar hoarse shout, 'Oy Tony!' I whip round, damaging my neck further, to see Michael Gambon in the lunch queue. …

Gambon tells me the story of Olivier auditioning him at the Old Vic in 1962. His audition speech was from Richard III. 'See, Tone, I was thick as two short planks then and I didn't know he'd had a rather notable success in the part. I was just shitting myself about meeting the Great Man. He sussed how green I was and started farting around.'

As reported by Gambon, their conversation went like this:

Olivier: 'What are you going to do for me?'

Gambon: 'Richard the Third.'

Olivier: 'Is that so. Which part?'

Gambon: 'Richard the Third.'

Olivier: 'Yes, but which part?'

Gambon: 'Richard the Third.'

Olivier: 'Yes, I understand that, but which part?'

Gambon: 'Richard the Third.'

Olivier: 'But which character? Catesby? Ratcliffe? Buckingham's a good part …'

Gambon: 'Oh I see, beg your pardon, no, Richard the Third.'

Olivier: 'What, the King? Richard?'

Gambon: ' - the Third, yeah.'

Olivier: "You've got a fucking cheek, haven't you?'

Gambon: 'Beg your pardon?'

Olivier: 'Never mind, which part are you going to do?'

Gambon: 'Richard the Third.'

Olivier: 'Don't start that again. Which speech?'

Gambon: 'Oh I see, beg your p ~ Antony Sher

Theater actors are just tolerated. You have to be a movie star to be a celebrity. ~ Michael Gambon

For an actor to remain a child is rather important. It's a childlike, dreamy thing, acting, if you think about it. It's the sort of thing children fantasise about, playing cowboys and Indians in the street. I think that acting is just a highly refined development of that. ~ Michael Gambon

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

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. ~ Michael Gambon

My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day. ~ Michael Gambon

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? ~ Michael Gambon

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. ~ Michael Gambon

I find it difficult to remember lines. When I'm doing a long speech for television, I sometimes have an earpiece with someone feeding me the text. But I can get by in the theatre if I study hard for a couple of months. ~ Michael Gambon

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

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

When you think about such fine actors as Maggie Smith or Michael Gambon, they do all mediums. I think it would be quite sad and a bit dull just to have to stick to one. I like all of them. ~ Keeley Hawes

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

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

I always look up to people like Michael Gambon and Tommy Lee Jones, and I hope that as I mature I will become as craggy as them. ~ Burn Gorman

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

I always saw Michael Gambon wearing madly psychedelic socks, and I always thought that's it is one of the few areas where men can really express colour and have a bit of a dandyish quality to their outfit. ~ Daniel Radcliffe

I never met my theater fans. I'm out the stage door five minutes after the curtain goes up. So that's it. I don't even know who comes, but thank God they do come. I can't tell. I keep my head down. I don't meet them. The fans from "Harry Potter" are kids who stop me in the street. I love that. That's terrific. I was amazed how many do. ~ Michael Gambon

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. ~ Michael Gambon

My formula for success was very simple: Do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it were given to you by the universe itself - because it was. ~ Michael A. Singer

Civic charity is easy to talk about but tremendously difficult to practice - mainly because a lot of people don't reciprocate. Some people will be rude and obnoxious and will laugh at us when we try to engage with them charitably. They will see our generosity as a sign of weakness and take advantage of our good nature to abuse us further. We will forgive them the requisite seventy times seven times, and they will keep on offending us. Charity always works this way, both the civic kind and the 'love-other-people-like-God-loves-you' kind.

We need not think, however, that we are shirking our duties or abandoning our causes when we decline to angrily denounce those on the other side or to treat them like subhuman imbeciles. Charitable engagement does not always change people's hearts and minds, but the number of times it has done so is not zero - which gives charity a better track record than anger, contempt, and derision. Ultimately, though, mature and thoughtful people do not allow the way other people treat them to determine how they treat other people; when we do this, we surrender an enormous amount of power to people who do not wish us well. ~ Michael Austin

When you are trying to sell a product like therapeutic transformation, there can be no ambiguity, no sense of anxiety, tension, or struggle. ~ Michael S. Horton

Of course, we could all die soon. I'm writing because Michael's patrolling the house and Shane and Claire are asleep. It may be the last chance I have to write anything down.
So in case that's true, I want to say that I love Shane and Claire, and I love Michael, and staying here in the Glass House has been the best time in my entire life ...
But if it all ends here, at least it's ending with the people I really love. ~ Rachel Caine

Theories are just fantasies. And they change. ~ Michael Crichton

I'm starting to think Mordecai bound you to someone's grandmother instead of the earth, because that's what you're starting to sound like!" barked Harold in a slightly louder voice. "Just like my Nanna, next you'll be complaining about your rheumatism. ~ Michael G. Manning

I've known a lot of religious people. My mother is very religious, but she also is very private about it. When I was growing up, she never went to church. She just prayed and read her Bible and kept it to herself. I'm not from a background of flamboyant believers. It's much more a personal issue. ~ Michael Shannon

I just turn the record in. I don't think about the commercialism of it, but rather what's getting me off. That's why I stay in this business, because I can still afford to do exactly what I want to do. ~ Michael Hedges

fucking prosecutor put a sleeper on the jury." I thought a moment about telling him but decided against it. "At the moment it's better if I don't tell ~ Michael Connelly

For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have come to be reserved for desultory reading. The pressure of the holiday is over, the weather outside is frightful, there are lots of leftovers to munch on, vacation hours are being used up. ~ Michael Dirda

The more power you have, the less you can truly say. That's the irony. ~ Michael Soll

the bond market, because Wall Street was now making even bigger money packaging and selling and shuffling around America's growing debts. ~ Michael Lewis

A gaffe is a politician inadvertently telling an inconvenient truth. ~ Michael Kinsley

There is nothing better than getting something in front of an audience in a less stressful setting than previews! ~ Michael Patrick Walker

I am legend. Death has no claim over me, illness cannot touch me. ~ Michael Scott

If you are truly a servant of God, then you are to serve him as a master. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

It's better to succeed against daunting odds than settle for a fantasy and get nowhere. ~ Michael Hyatt

The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world. Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds. ~ Michael Pollan

Let each citizen contribute their natural talents or acquired skills to the greater benefit of all in the community. ~ Michael Tellinger

I think DVD has been a real gold mine for a lot of reasons. You were selling a packaged good in a big mass market, so you could make it huge. You were selling or renting a thing that people didn't consume. You go to Blockbuster, rent five movies, and only watch two. That's a good business to be in. ~ Michael Lynton

Let there be no mistake. A gay man alone could never begin to replicate the inner workings of the female mind. ~ Michael Patrick King

Every ruling class has wanted only this: all the rewards and none of the burdens. The operational code is: we have a lot; we can get more; we want it all. ~ Michael Parenti

I always say YCDA: you can do anything. If you want
to be a successful actor, you have to believe in yourself more than
anything else, and dont let anybody tell you that you cannot do it
because you can. ~ Michael Clarke Duncan

I'm not going to try and change how people perceive me. I think it's important to be a contradiction. People are contradictions; everyone has contradictions. So I don't expect anyone to look at me differently. ~ Michael Rapaport

Never reveal all of yourself to other people; hold back something in reserve so that people are never quite sure if they really know you. ~ Michael Korda

There were doors that looked like large keyholes, others that resembled the entrances to caves, there were golden doors, some were padded and some were studded with nails, some were paper-thin and others as thick as the doors of treasure houses; there was one that looked like a giant's mouth and another that had to be opened like a drawbridge, one that suggested a big ear and one that was made of gingerbread, one that was shaped like an oven door, and one that had to be unbuttoned. ~ Michael Ende

Directors have so much else to do besides tell actors what to do. There are so many issues and problems. ~ Michael Douglas

We humans are nothing more than the sum of our memories. ~ Michael Scott

People, you can never change the way they feel. Better let them do what they will. For they will, if you let them, steal your heart. ~ George Michael

And what about a text message? Isn't that just using a telephone as a telegraph? ~ Michael Finkel

For years now there had been no country here but the war. ~ Michael Herr

Every place in the country you should get a license that shows you know how to safely store it, keep it away from your children or grandchildren. You should have to license it so the police can trace it if it's used in a crime. ~ Michael D. Barnes

The characteristic of vision. That great sweeping act of imagination which evoked a marvelous park, where children pressed against the fences, wondering at the extraordinary creatures, come alive from their storybooks. Real vision. The ability to see the future. The ability to marshal resources to make that future vision a reality. ~ Michael Crichton