Words matter. These are the best British Actors Quotes from famous people such as Dominic West, Diana Rigg, Jamie Bamber, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Ashley Madekwe, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I don’t know why British actors are getting big parts in American TV shows. Maybe it’s because we’re cheap.
‘Game of Thrones’ is wonderful. My theory is they employ all these British actors because, one, they are like me and grateful. Two, we turn up, and we know our lines. Three, we don’t demand a 60 ft. Winnebago and PA, and four, largely we are very uncomplaining.
When I first did a U.S. pilot season, there were very few British actors schlepping around town trying to get into television. That was 1999.
British actors behave like Europeans; they are also extremely well trained.
My first job was a film called ‘Storm Damage’ for the BBC. I was 16 and working with really respected British actors. I didn’t have an agent at the time, and it kind of threw me into real acting.
The British actors I’ve met and worked with have all been very supportive of each other.
I confess I’ve got a yearning to go to Los Angeles, but I can’t work out if it is because a lot of British actors seem to go or because there’s this perception that the bottom has fallen out of British drama, so therefore, it’s the place to head for.
Coming from documentaries, my biggest challenge was to understand actors’ psychologies. American actors take it all very seriously; British actors don’t enter into all this methody way of doing things.
A lot of British actors will look at America as such a land of opportunity. In England, there’s such a small pool of working actors of color. There’s such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the first place.
With most British actors, it’s amazing. I think they start with the character on the outside and work in.
Everyone the world over talks about British actors and British talent and I think that’s because we were trained – until now – in theatre.
Some British actors are snobby about telly, and I don’t understand that.
I’m not Tom Cruise. Very few British actors are. If you look at the body of work I’ve done it’s pretty obvious I’m not going to make a ‘Mission: Impossible.’
I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I’m learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed.
I had to choose between American and British actors, and it didn’t take me more than a second to decide: Russians are Europeans and should be played by other Europeans.
I have to audition for everything; there is no Mrs. Robbie Williams free pass, and because I’m working with British actors everyone is so polite – no one mentions Robbie.
I think, as a generation of British actors, we’re becoming a bit soft and too manipulated by the business.
British actors used to be scared of the multi-year options that U.S. TV shows demand. That has changed, because the same is now happening in the U.K.
I was offered and accepted a part in ‘A Few Best Men,’ and then the Australian actor’s union argued that there were too many British actors. And the director decided to lose me.
The reason that most British actors are better than most American actors in the end is that they don’t make any money. At the very end of their lives, they get into a space movie and they make a lot of money, but until that happens, basically, they don’t have bank accounts. They live from day to day.
British actors wear wigs a lot. I find it to be a nice ritual at the end of the day, take the wig off, clean the makeup off, go home, leave work behind me.
British actors are pretty good, by and large, at turning on at ‘action’ and off at ‘cut.’
I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I’m learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed. Maybe I would have less gray hairs today.
I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.
There’s an honourable tradition of British actors who’ve gone to Hollywood playing baddies. Part of that is because we grow up with Richard III and Macbeth – we’re not afraid of our villains.
