Derek Jacobi Quotes

We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.

Real-life people are often the hardest to play, people that you recreate who have actually lived, because you have to live up to people's knowledge of those characters.

There's never been any game plan or thread through my career. It's just happened that I've ricocheted from one interesting character to another.

Ultimately it's a leap of faith and a leap of imagination to put yourself back in time into those conditions and situations and see how you would react.

I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're in the business of transferring emotions to other people.

He was living in an age much more dangerous, more painful, much more on the edge than our own particular age.

It was never physically dangerous except when I nearly fell off a horse, but it was physically arduous - especially when you were working late at night.

I am an actor and I live in the world of pretend in my working capacity. I live in the world of my imagination.

It's too hard a life for me. I could only do it - check out in that sense - if I checked out somewhere that was luxurious and within hailing distance of civilization.

Sir Larry could be very strict and a disciplinarian, too. He had many faces; he wore many hats. But, ultimately, he loved the theater and he loved actors.

I never lose that terror of 'this is my last job, I'll never work again.' You can never relax and rely on whatever reputation you've built.

I think that each character has fascinated and interested me enough to want to play him.

I'm always conscious of the fact that I am part of a profession that is 80% permanently unemployed. So, to be working in any sense is to be privileged.

Actors, I don't think, ever really grow up. I'm hoping that that rejuvenating process applies to me, too. It has so far. I've been very lucky.

It was doing very well; it was doing particularly well outside of England. It was a very big seller for Carlton Television. But it was getting more and more expensive to do.

I thought it was getting better and better, because the production values were increasing each time we did it.

I've been a professional actor now for 38 years. A long time. And it's wonderful to earn your living doing something that you love. To think people actually give you money for it!