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Ben Kingsley Quotes

Ben Kingsley Quotes

Enjoy the top 89 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Ben Kingsley.

“I want to play a man in uniform. Ive got tremendous respect for that life that they lead. We know so little about it. Its never discussed or talked about, when they come back from battle. I want to examine the choices that have to be made in some terrible times. Ill get to wear a uniform.”
— Ben Kingsley —

“If your best friend has stolen your girlfriend, it does become life and death.”

— Ben Kingsley

There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word.

— Ben Kingsley

“Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy ... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen.”

— Ben Kingsley

“There have not been any troughs as regards my work. There's never been a trough of my assurance.”

— Ben Kingsley

I just loved playing a man who was unafraid of making an idiot of himself in the process of falling in love. I found that admirable.

— Ben Kingsley

“I honestly have no strategy whatsoever. I'm waiting for that script to pop through the letterbox and completely surprise me.”

— Ben Kingsley

I'm very in love with the fact that the camera is revolted by acting and loves behaviour.

— Ben Kingsley

I think that most actors, and they're a very strange lot actors, very strange people, but I think that they attempt to keep in touch with the child.

— Ben Kingsley

In England, it's now Sir Ben. Mister has just disappeared. It's not even on my passport anymore. They've taken Mister away from me.

— Ben Kingsley

“The hierarchy of class in London was rigid. It was like a religion. It still is to a certain extent.”

— Ben Kingsley

“If I were to play somebody who ran a fish and chip shop, I would not work in a fish and chip shop for three months. Staring at chips is not going to help me in my performance.”

— Ben Kingsley

“When Attenborough asked me to do Gandhi it was almost like stepping off one boat and stepping on to another, even though both boats are going at 60 miles per hour.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I do remember, as a child, that I always imagined, when I was maybe 6 or 7, my fantasy was that everywhere I went I was being followed by an invisible film crew.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I have never felt bereft of anything.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.”

— Ben Kingsley

“It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity.”

— Ben Kingsley

“The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.”

— Ben Kingsley

“But filming is good for you, because the crew isn't allowed to laugh. You can't get addicted to getting the laugh.”

— Ben Kingsley

Fifteen years before I became a screen actor, I was in the theatre. A lot of my work was comedy, which I loved doing. It's harder.

— Ben Kingsley

I have a rather naive approach, I think, to my job.

— Ben Kingsley

“I was fortunate as a young actor, to go straight to the RSC, where I learned that being an actor can bring with it wonderful responsibilities.”

— Ben Kingsley

Well, it's wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.

— Ben Kingsley

“When you drop your guard in films, the acting process compensates. You get lazy and you start acting.”

— Ben Kingsley

I think that all of us either lose touch with the child inside us or try and hold onto it because it so precious to us and it's such an extraordinary part of our lives.

— Ben Kingsley

“I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things.”

— Ben Kingsley

“Somewhere in your career, your work changes. It becomes less anal, less careful and more spontaneous, more to do with the information that your soul carries.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I think the actor has a tribal role as the archetypal story teller. I think there was a time when the storyteller, the priest, the healer, were all one person in one body. That person used to weave stories at night around a small fire to keep the tribe from being terrified that sun had gone down.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can't because they can't face it.”

— Ben Kingsley

“They're a very strange lot actors, very strange people.”

— Ben Kingsley

“The biggest surprise in a man's life is old age.”

— Ben Kingsley

“Millions of children are disempowered and we need to empower them.”

— Ben Kingsley

“You don't go to a town to present the play and have applause at the end of it, but that's benign conquest. It's a glorious way of exploring other landscapes and other cultures in a very life-affirming way.”

— Ben Kingsley

You cannot learn a lesson of profound forgiveness unless you understand what it is to be wounded and forgive that which has wounded you.

— Ben Kingsley

Family is family over the internet, over Skype, over the telephone. Love is love. You don't have to actually go through some ritual to prove that you love somebody.

— Ben Kingsley

“If it's a really well written villain, he probably has more layers than the archetypal good person. So that would be very attractive to an actor. No one chooses to be a villain; it's usually a reaction to something else.”

— Ben Kingsley

“Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.”

— Ben Kingsley

There is always something about the villains that I'm able to play, quote unquote, that isn't villainous.

— Ben Kingsley

“I've met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I never went to drama school. I went straight into the theater. We had the most extraordinary voice teacher. I worked with her when I was starting out in my career. How to place my voice from a very relaxed position was all wonderfully reminiscent of going back to the basics. But I always like to do that with any role that I do, to dismantle it and put it all back together again.”

— Ben Kingsley

Shock is shock. Your body goes into shock, regardless of it being real blood or fake blood. The mind sends powerful messages to all the various glands and secretions in the body. It's impossible trying to act it; it just happens. It's a very important question: no acting.

— Ben Kingsley

“I told myself that I would not go back to the camps as an actor ever again, that I was very frightened of wearing a yellow star. It was fear, it was cowardice, I was.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I want to play a man in uniform. I've got tremendous respect for that life that they lead. We know so little about it. It's never discussed or talked about, when they come back from battle. I want to examine the choices that have to be made in some terrible times. I'll get to wear a uniform.”

— Ben Kingsley

“The number of choices you make in the event that you see on stage, those choices are sometimes largely determined by the rehearsal process and the experiments that you go through and the choices that you make in the rehearsal room, not in front of an audience.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I never read anything in print about me. It started with not reading reviews and with the greatest respect to my publicist here, I never read interviews. I was there when I gave them. I never read reviews. I was there when I did the jobs - so I'm totally immune. I live in a bubble.”

— Ben Kingsley

“If the director wishes to print it, then you have a series of choices, maybe millions of choices within that minute-and-a-half, or 80 seconds, or 2 minutes or however long or short the take is, you have all those choices committed to celluloid. I find that absolutely thrilling.”

— Ben Kingsley

“I think that Shakespeare had his male side and his female side extremely well developed. And this was a great quality of the Elizabethan, all-around Renaissance man. They were not afraid of their male side and their female side co-existing. This somewhere along the line got lost. And then it got misunderstood.”