- [Describing one of his Gone with the Wind (1939) costumes]: I look like that sissy doorman at the Beverly Wilshire, a fine thing at my age.
- I hate the damn part. I'm not nearly beautiful or young enough for Ashley, and it makes me sick being fixed up to look attractive.
- I feel the pressure from other people coming at me. When shots don't fall for one person I think it is a domino effect.
- What the actor is in private life, he is to a large extent on the stage, because he cannot conceal himself and his true personality from his audience.
- Britain's destiny, on the other hand, has been to uphold tolerance in religion, thought, speech, and race--the mainspring of democracy. We have still far to travel on the road to true democracy, but only the Germans have made no progress in this direction. Britain, with her great gifts and strange inconsistencies had helped populate five continents and shown that the white man and the colored man can live in peace together. We have also taken the Roman ideal of just administration, the Greek ideal of democracy and freedom of art, and the French tradition of the family unit, along with the Norse courage and loyalty and the Christian faith. Like all people, we have made some mistakes and have committed some crimes during our history, but we can say that we have built something worthy of our defense. We can look at our record without shame.
- Don't think I am not homesick for America. I say 'homesick' advisedly because I am a man with two homes -- America, which gave me hospitality for many happy years, and where my daughter was born; and my native England.
- I looked around for some kind of contribution I could make -- some kind of war work I could do. For a long time it was very difficult. There were millions of fellows about my age all looking for the same thing. Desperate, I went to see Duff Cooper and asked him if I should go back in the army. I was in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry in the last war. It's mechanized now, but I daresay I could polish a tank as well as groom a horse. He said, "You should stick to your own job. I think you can be more useful at that. And gradually I have, so to speak, fallen on my wartime feet.
- In the love of a good woman you have everything, all the wonders of the ages, the brown skinned girls who inflame your senses with their play; the cool, yellow-haired women who entice and escape you; the gentle ones who serve you; the slender ones who torment you; the mothers who bore and suckled you;--all women whom God created out of the teeming fullness of the earth are yours in the love of one women.
- I am a tremendous believer in the power of broadcasting. ... I don't believe anything is too good for the public. ... In my own experience I have proved that the cinema public is as ready to patronize the work of Bernard Shaw, the music of William Walton and film technique at its most subtle.
- [July 1932 interview with Schenectady Gazette regarding persistent rumors of leaving film] Statements derogatory to talkies credited to me are absurd. I like movies and their potentialities. I think Hollywood is making definite strides forward when it produces a 'Grand Hotel' and a 'Strange Interlude'. The sole argument I have had with the producers concerned my own parts. I make my living by public approval of my work, and can hardly be blamed, I am sure, for having my own ideas as to the roles I can do best. That these differences are adjusted is indicated by my presence here. A great deal of the misunderstanding which has arisen comes from my recent departure from Hollywood. It was assumed that I would not be back. That is silly. I never expected to give up the stage, but never again do I plan to be on it exclusively. I intend to commute between New York and Hollywood as long as both mediums still want me. Any actor hates to leave the stage, for there he is supreme, the most important individual. On the screen he takes second place to the director. This is essential in the film art, and the actor agrees, but he can hardly be blamed, can he, for returning to his first love? I intend to return to the stage, periodically, believing that my experience in each medium will help me in the other. The screen gives me a lot of pleasure because of its peculiar and exclusive impressionistic power. Dialog, words, are all important on the stage. On the screen words are only part of a composite combination with visual factors which give remarkable effect different from those possible on the stage. In the small, routine, program pictures their appearance indicates the expansion we many expect of the screen art in coming years.
- [July 1933] I can't think of anything more exciting than trying to be an actor.
- The truth is that to enjoy acting one must be an exhibitionist at heart, one must revel in those exposures of the emotions which would be agonizing to a shy or reserved person. All the great actors have been and are exhibitionists. It is easy and pleasurable for them to shout, to weep, to tear their hair, to laugh, to make love. They enjoy it and they make their audience enjoy it. They are the ideal actors. As a boy the possibility of being an actor never even occurred to me. Nor could it have occurred to anybody who knew the shy and inarticulate youth that I was. I wanted to write. I felt I could express myself on paper; alone in a room I felt articulate and creative. But I was also lazy, a thing a writer never dare be. Application is, I am convinced, the first rule for authors. Then, mysteriously, a part in a play offered itself -- at time when to earn a living was a prime motive of existence. And then another part in another play. And gradually the miracle took place. The metamorphosis of a nervous, inhibited, agoraphobic individual who had other ambitions altogether into a quite successful actor.
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