Hamlet Quotes

I don't make much distinction between being a stand-up comic and acting Shakespeare - in fact, unless you're a good comedian, you're never going to be able to play Hamlet properly.

We want to do for 'Hamlet' what Baz Luhrmann did for 'Romeo and Juliet' in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining.

From the wrestling of his own soul with the great enemy, comes that depth and mystery which startles us in Hamlet.

I'm not in the advertising business, but I think it would be very nice if people went to see the film Hamlet, because it was made with love and integrity.

I'm not saying that Sam J. Jones was Flash Gordon - there's no such thing. No actor can be the person, that's a bunch of crap. People pay to see an actor be himself, whether he plays Hamlet or whatever.

What if Shakespeare had had a test audience for Romeo and Juliet or Hamlet?

The actor is too prone to exaggerate his powers; he wants to play Hamlet when his appearance is more suitable to King Lear.

The trap in Hamlet is he's the most passive of Shakespeare's characters. He's not a Richard III, not out there taking a lot of action. It's a lot of asides and soliloquies where he's wrapped in angst, and that's not a very interesting character.

I'm on the list that I thought I'd never be on. I'm not sitting here thinking, 'God, I might get this part' or 'is it too late for me to play Hamlet?' It's really about: who do I get to work with? There's so many people on that list.

You have to learn the language of Hamlet.

Romeo is the most misunderstood character in literature, I think. He's hardcore to play because he's displaying the characteristics of Hamlet at the beginning, and, well, then everything else happens.

Both Brutus and Hamlet are highly intellectual by nature and reflective by habit. Both may even be called, in a popular sense, philosophic; Brutus may be called so in a stricter sense.

Most actors are either a shower of bloody scruffs or think they should dress like Hamlet off stage.

There have been more books alone written about Hamlet than have been written about the Bible.

I have felt some twinges recently, about parts I wanted to play that I may be getting too old and fat to do. 'Hamlet,' for example - maybe that's gone. I would love to play Richard II.

Doing Shakespeare in the Park has always been a dream. Everyone else says Hamlet, but I want to play Romeo.

Most people don't know that I am an accomplished dramatic actor... But I've performed in several Shakespeare productions including Hamlet, except in this version, Hamlet lives in an apartment with two women, and has to pretend he's gay so that the landlord won't evict him.

Hamlet is an astonishing intelligence.

And I just think that to introduce an unknown Shakespeare is thrilling, too - not to do Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, to do the richer Shakespeare. People will come to this and not know the story.

I don't think Hamlet is mad, nor is he predisposed to be a gloomy or tragic figure.

The thing that I had saved up for myself and wanted most to bring off was a fully fledged professional production of Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford.

I played Hamlet, I played Chekhov and Ibsen and all the classics.

The time has mainly gone on getting Inform into a decent shape for public use. I suppose the plot of 'Curses' makes a sequel conceivable when compared with, say, the plot of 'Hamlet' but none is planned.

I started to realise that it wasn't for me. Perhaps I didn't have to give my Hamlet before I died, that the world might be an OK place without my Hamlet, in fact.

I've done classical theaters. I played Hamlet myself and Romeo.

I was so scared of going back to the theatre after 'Hamlet.' I didn't know if I'd do a play again because I was afraid of the power of it.

I don't admire Freud as much as some people do. Imagine Shakespeare being aware of the Oedipal complex when he wrote Hamlet. It would have been a disaster.

You'd never play Hamlet if you started worrying about who's played it before you.

At the close of the day when the hamlet is still, and mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove, when naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, and naught but the nightingale's song in the grove.

I would rather play Hamlet with no rehearsal than TV golf.