And it was the idea that you can do a play – like a Shakespeare play, or any well-written play, Arthur Miller, whatever – and say things you could never imagine saying, never imagine thinking in your own life.
I am delighted to be working with Guy Ritchie on ‘King Arthur,’ who’s been a boyhood hero of mine ever since ‘Lock, Stock’ and ‘Snatch.’
We had hoped to have been bringing you Arthur the Human Chameleon, but this afternoon, he crawled across a tartan rug and died of exhaustion.
We make sure that we continue to educate our youth on who Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe were.
I think I read too much Arthur Conan Doyle when I was young and got this idea that a gentleman should know a lot about one thing and plenty about most everything else.
Master storytellers like Jeffrey Archer and Arthur Hailey use simple language. But they manage to grab the attention of the readers right from page one. I’ll consider myself a good storyteller the day people believe it’s OK to be late for work or postpone deadlines just to finish reading my book.
I always dreamed of playing a night match on Arthur Ashe Stadium. It’s a dream come true for me.
There have been so many different versions of the legend and of ‘Camelot,’ so what I wanted to do was strip it all back, and go back to the beginning and tell the story of Arthur, from the beginning of the relationship between Merlin and Arthur.
I remember when I was doing ‘The Crucible’ on Broadway with Laura Linney, and Arthur Miller had been in rehearsal with us and was on stage on opening night. She turned to me during the curtain call and said, ‘Let’s make sure we remember this.’
King Arthur was one of my heroes – I played with a trash can lid for a knightly shield and my uncle’s cane for the sword Excalibur.
I was fortunate to have people like Althea Gibson come and speak to me, also Leslie Allen and Arthur Ashe. So I feel obligated, part of my duty, to continue to pass on the knowledge I’ve learned to youngsters and adults alike.
There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don’t think there is enough of. One of my favourites is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, ‘The City and the Stars.’ It’s set in this far future on Earth in this somewhat static society and trying to break out.
John Kerry wants to be the hero in his own drama. He likes King Arthur and the Round Table. He likes the young swashbuckling Churchill, and he loved the early antics of Theodore Roosevelt.
In Merlin, Arthur has a very loyal friend who keeps him on his toes. Arthur enjoys those challenges, and there is a lot of great banter between them. Meanwhile, in Arthur, Merlin has a friend he can really rely on. Merlin knows that when it comes the crunch, Arthur will always do the right thing.
I am a Russell Brand fan. I’m one of the few people who think he did a cracker-jack job in ‘Arthur.’
Mr. Arthur Ashe, he was good. I read some of his books. He knew about everything, but he was real quiet and didn’t talk much. I never met him.
We went to Ibiza, and I was on Ritalin, and, for a kid who couldn’t concentrate, I read a 200-page book on King Arthur, and my mum just hated it. She said it just wasn’t me.
I was a complete and typical only child. I was bookish, and sport was out of the question anyway. I had read all of Dickens and most of the volumes of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia by the time I was 11. The only time I was popular at school was the day I won the debating competition for my house.
Because of the nature of King Arthur and the resonance he has, not only with within the U.K., but right around the world, I have found it a huge honour to play the part. I will look back on it very fondly and be very proud to have been King Arthur when I finally hang up the chain mail!
After guest appearances, I got the offer to do the show as the successor of Arthur Schwartz. It’s so much fun.
When I was on stage in the ’50s, it was a glory time, a golden time with Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. There was real talent. And now, the theater is a little Disney-fied.
It’s always an honor to play on Arthur Ashe stadium.
My first, big, silly role at school was as Arthur Crocker-Harris in Rattigan’s ‘The Browning Version,’ where my job was to make school-masters’ wives weep with recognition.
I grew up on Geto Boys and of course UGK, who put my hometown of Port Arthur, Texas, on the map. I was about Goodie Mob and OutKast too.
I completely disagree with Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute on the need for dignity in the marketplace instead of the social safety net, but he is a very persuasive character.
In creating the silkpunk aesthetic, I was influenced by the ideas of W. Brian Arthur, who articulates a vision of technology as a language.
‘Twenty One Pilots’ is a play by Arthur Miller, who also wrote ‘All My Sons.’ It’s about a guy who’s creating and developing parts for airplanes in war time, when it comes to his attention that some of these parts were faulty.
In big battle scenes, like ‘King Arthur’, you see the knights in all their fine armour, but they’re not in the thick of it: follow the perspective, and you’ll find some poor little sod, who didn’t want to be there, anyway, with his head split.
What does Macbeth want? What does Shakespeare want? What does Othello want? What does James want? What does Arthur Miller want when he wrote? Those things you incorporate and create in the character, and then you step back and you create it. It always must begin with the point of truth within yourself.
And then, all of a sudden, you’re like, all that’s great and fun, but Arthur Miller’s in my dressing room. This is the third night he’s been here and he sits in my dressing room for an hour after each show, and talks to me for an hour. So I’m pretty spoiled right now.
I came to the plain fields of Ohio with pictures painted by Hollywood movies and the works of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. None of them had much to say, if at all, about Dayton, Ohio.
The story is also about the battle between Arthur and the Saxons. The Saxons were destroying everything they came across and Arthur was left when Rome was falling because this movie takes place in 400 A.D.
I got treated very badly in Texas. They don’t treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they’d never seen one and neither had I.
I’m from Houston. I think I was thirty-seven before I ever set foot in Dallas, and that was just in the airport. So I’ve never really been there. Dad grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and all I can ever get out of him is, ‘I wanted my first son to be named Dallas.’
I love Joyce Carol Oates. I love Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle. Arthur Phillips is always consistent.
Before Arthur, I’d dismissed altogether writing fiction. You only have so many semi-sharp arrows in your quiver, I’d told myself, and I was not going to be able to write a novel.
Arthur is my middle name; George is my dad’s middle name.
My foundation in acting has been serious theatre: Albert Camus, Arthur Miller, Shakespeare. It’s really the best medium to learn the craft.
It was really my grandmother who was the biggest influence because she’d talk back to the celebrities and politicians on TV. She was a combination of Joan Rivers, Elaine Stritch, Betty White, and Bea Arthur rolled into one.
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