Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's read more

Like hungry guests, a sitting audience looks;
Plays are like suppers; poets are the cooks.
The founder's you: the table is the place:
The carvers we: the prologue is the grace.
Each act, a course, each scene, a different dish,
Though we're in Lent, I doubt you're still for flesh.
Satire's the sauce, high-season'd, sharp and rough.
Kind masks and beaux, I hope you're pepperproof?
Wit is the wine; but 'tis so scarce the true
Poets, like vintners, balderdash and brew.
Your surly scenes, where rant and bloodshed join.
Are butcher's meat, a battle's sirloin:
Your scenes of love, so flowing, soft and chaste,
Are water-gruel without salt or taste.

Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor,
prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeepeer, doorkeeper, all
in read more

Everybody has his own theatre, in which he is manager, actor,
prompter, playwright, sceneshifter, boxkeepeer, doorkeeper, all
in one, and audience into the bargain.

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.

A good actor must never be in love with anyone but himself.

If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good
play needs no epilogue.

If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good
play needs no epilogue.

This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew.

This is the Jew that Shakespeare drew.

I want to have something that's different to the way I've been portrayed. I admire Angelina Jolie - she acts read more

I want to have something that's different to the way I've been portrayed. I admire Angelina Jolie - she acts tough but is still sexy.

I sweat. If anything comes easy to me I mistrust it.

I sweat. If anything comes easy to me I mistrust it.

The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.

The play was a great success but the audience was a disaster.

I’ve been offered a lot but I want to stay away from romance, comedies and fluffy work. I met Stephen read more

I’ve been offered a lot but I want to stay away from romance, comedies and fluffy work. I met Stephen Spielberg at a breast cancer benefit and he explained that he’d seen me on Saturday Night Live and thought I was ready for a movie. He said, ‘You go to the ledge and are unafraid to jump off.’ That was the biggest compliment to me because he was saying I was free.