Words matter. These are the best Charles Dance Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
We have to take risks in British television. It has to stop playing to the lowest common denominator and patronising people.
We need to look to our laurels a bit with television in this country. I don’t think enough risks are being taken in drama television in the U.K., and I think a lot of programme makers are underestimating the intelligence of the viewing public, basing it all on ratings.
I’m riddled with cynicism. Whenever anyone says ‘trust me,’ the hairs go up on the back of my neck.
I like to be busy. I once shared an agent with the late Sir John Gielgud, who, at 96, was apparently still ringing up, saying, ‘Hello, Gielgud here, any work?’ Good on him. We’ve got to keep working. If we retire, there’ll be nobody to play the old wrinklies, and that would be a dreadful shame.
There is a huge fan base; they’re very knowledgeable and very loyal. I was astonished – before I started working on the series, I didn’t know anything about ‘Game of Thrones.’ I hadn’t heard of the books.
I’ve done maybe twelve of Shakespeare’s plays. I was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for years. Whatever influence that has never leaves you. If you learn to drive a car, and you learn the right way if there is ever a right way. You learn the good aspects, you learn to drive properly. And that never leaves you.
I love the Restoration. It’s a bit like coming out of the John Major era into the optimism of Tony Blair.
I like approbation. Any actor who tells you they don’t is lying.
I don’t like watching television too much; it tires me out for some reason. But I saw a fair bit of ‘Game of Thrones’ because it was so good. I mostly watched episodes that I wasn’t in.
My mother was a waitress in a Lyons Corner House, but she married up. She was keen on bettering herself. She taught me how to use the right knives and forks and behave properly.
You have to be selfish to be an actor.
Most films are written and made with a hero around 35, or even 25.
Power is always a corrupting influence.
Runners are the lowest of the low in film units. They’re paid very, very minimal wages – probably below the national average. And runners are now being asked to drive actors about, as well as their runner duties. It’s kind of the same as taking advantage of nurses – it’s appalling.
My face lends itself to austere characters, and unless they’re two-dimensional, I will do them. Any actor will tell you that an interesting villain is much more interesting to play.
People think I have the benefit of a public school education. I have this suave and debonair label, but really, I’m as common as muck.
In my home, I listen to music; I play music: I play guitar and I play ukelele. And I swim and I ride a bike and I do all the things that everybody else does.
When you have a label stuck on you, people tend to believe it. If someone calls you suave and debonair, you only get offered parts in a suit and a collar and tie. It just so happens I wear them reasonably well.
If I talk about Charles Dance I am talking about something else, something I operate and wind up and have to make an impression with and use to transmit someone else’s screenplay.
I’ve got a range as an actor! There was a time I played dramatic leading men.
I like to keep up with London theatre, but it is a question of time.
If I was to put a little flag in everywhere I’ve been in the world, there’d be a lot of little flags.
I was a window dresser for Burton’s once. What really put me off was the area manager coming round and saying, Charles, I think you’re a natch at this.
Politics is the most corrupt profession on Earth, no matter where you are.
When you get to a certain age, the work begins to thin out.
A while ago, I did a television adaptation of ‘Bleak House,’ and the character I played, as far as I was concerned, had no redeeming features whatsoever. I wasn’t about to try to find any; I didn’t need to.
Your senses are reeling all the time. Finally you find something to write and the very next day you go out and see something else which totally contradicts what you’ve written and every conclusion you’ve come to.
We had five goats, two dogs, a cat and racks of commentaries on Shakespeare.
You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.
Actors can’t retire. If actors retired, there would be nobody left to play old, wrinkly people. You have to keep going, darling – don’t you?
