Laurence Olivier - biography

1907-1989

Biography

Laurence Olivier is best-known for the following films:

Laurence Olivier Quotes

“[Charlie] Chaplin was a most terrible phoney. He talked very pretentiously in this half-American, half-Cockney accent. But of course he couldn’t escape from the unlikely fact that he was a genius.”

“[Marilyn Monroe] was the victim of ballyhoo and sensation - exploited beyond anyone’s means.”

“Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.”

“I don’t know what is better than the work that is given to the actor-to teach the human heart the knowledge of itself.”

“I often think that could we creep behind the actor’s eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.”

“I should be soaring away with my head tilted slightly toward the gods, feeding on the caviar of Shakespeare. An actor must act.”

“I’d like people to remember me for a diligent expert workman. I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God’s a workman. I don’t think there’s anything better than a workman.”

“If you can reveal to an audience what lies within them, you can be as important as a philosopher, a psychiatrist, a doctor, a minister, or whatever. You have to love and feel not only your own role - or some element in it - but also feel and love the audience. Sounds sentimental, I’m afraid, but there you have it.”

“Lead the audience by the nose to the thought.”

“My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.”

“Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.”

“The actor should be able to create the universe in the palm of his hand.”

“The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.”

“We ape, we mimic, we mock. We act.”

“We have all, at one time or another, been performers, and many of us still are - politicians, playboys, cardinals and kings.”

“What is acting but lying, and what is good acting but convincing lying?”

“When you’re a young man, Macbeth is a character part. When you’re older, it’s a straight part.”

“You must have - besides intuition and sensitivity - a cutting edge that allows you to reach what you need. Also, you have to know about life - bastards included. And it takes a bit of one to know one.”

“Best way to go is like one of the furry creatures in the forest, crawling underneath the bramble bush. It’s rather more noble than wishing your family around you, feeling your pulse, fussing about.”

“They criticize me: ‘Why’s he doing such muck?’ To pay for three children in school, for my family and their future.”

“Have a very good reason for everything you do.”

“I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it.”

“A man who is entirely masculine isn’t really normal, is he? I’m not saying he has to be as queer as a three dollar bill. I mean, if he hasn’t a certain amount of absolute feminine in him - feminine mind you, not femininity - I doubt he’d be interesting.”

“Hard to understand, hard to do. I always try to reassure the audience initially that they’re not going to see some grotesque, out-sized dimension of something they can’t understand or sympathize with - then there’s no end to where you can lead them. Young actors shouldn’t have to wait until they’re film stars, like dear Marlon, before they play it.”

“I believe that in a great city, or even in a small city or a village, a great theater is the outward and visible sign of an inward and probable culture.”

“I’m afraid the public knows me too well. They know every shade of voice, every trick, every goddamned movement I can make.”

“If he was lost for a moment, he would dive straight back into its honey.”

“Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word.”

Filmography

The Actor