Laurence Quotes

Don't you understand how dramatic it is to be a comic? To be a fool, to get people to laugh at this show-off? Milton Berle could take Laurence Olivier and stick him under the table if he wanted to. And so could I.

I wanted to be Laurence Olivier, basically, to be a great classical actor, and also be able to do modern things.

I can manage a prose format as long as I keep closer to Laurence Sterne than to Henry James.

But as I grew up as a child, falling in love with the theater and Shakespeare, my heroes were Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud.

Yes, it's true, I've been called the Laurence Olivier of spoofs. I guess that would make Laurence Olivier the Leslie Nielsen of Shakespeare.

Reading about Queen Victoria has been a passion of mine since, as a child, I came across Laurence Housman's play 'Happy and Glorious,' with its Ernest Shepard illustrations.

I played Othello, but I didn't sit around thinking how Laurence Olivier did it when he played it. That wouldn't do me any good.

I started being interested in acting when I heard the voices of Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud and Sir Alec Guinness. I've had the great privilege of working with Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Anthony Hopkins. These are people who inspire the work that I do.

I figure there are a few actors like Marlon Brando, George C. Scott and Laurence Olivier who have been touched by the hand of God. I'm in the next bunch.

I wouldn't write anything autobiographical. If you've lived a life like Laurence of Arabia, it might be a consideration, but otherwise it's a little bit vain, it seems to me.

Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts, and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious, it's hilarious.