Ken Stott

He was nominated for a 1997 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actor in a Play of 1996 for his performance in "ART".

When unions were involved you had to be a member of Equity to be an actor. There was a closed shop operating. It made life very difficult, it made it very, very difficult to become an actor. But those who did did so because they persevered. It would sort out the wheat from the chaff in that those who stuck with it, those who persevered went on. And of course it also meant that the standard of work you could in many ways rely on. Not so now, now anybody can be an actor, you don't have to a member of the union, you can work wherever you like, television, film, theatre. In London, in the West End, people pay 65 pounds to a hundred pounds for a seat, they want to see professionals, they don't want to see somebody who's made a bad choice choosing somebody who can't act. And the union would help in that way.