Top Vanessa Redgrave Quotes

Vanessa Redgrave Biography

Vanessa Redgrave CBE (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress of stage, screen and television, and a political activist. She is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, and received the 2010 BAFTA Fellowship.

Read about Vanessa Redgrave in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Vanessa Redgrave Quotes

What I didn't understand was that the personal and the political go together. I felt at the time I had to sacrifice my children's present for their future. It seemed an either
or. I didn't realise that by being with one's own children I would have had a better understanding of the ones who are not my own. I was thinking of them but I didn't spend the time that they needed from me. It's a tribute to them that they came out so well.

Children, Political, Sacrifice, Thinking

The stage is actor's country. You have to get your passport stamped every so often or they take away your citizenship.

Acting, Actors, Country, Passport, Stage, Stamped

How can there be democracy if the leadership in the United States and Britain don't uphold the values which my father's generation fought the Nazis, millions of people gave their lives against the Soviet Union's regime, didn't they? Because of what? Democracy. And what democracy meant. No torture, no camps, no detention forever or without trial, without charges. In solitary confinement. Those techniques which are not just alleged, they have actually been written about by the FBI. I don't think it's being far left - I hope that I'm wrong to consider that it's far left to uphold the rule of law.

Britain, Father, Fbi, Law, Leadership, Thinking

When somebody can't reveal what they're after - whether by word or by how the camera is set up, lighting, etcetera - it's like an electronic beep beep; it interferes very much with what we actors can do. And, after all, the director wants the actors to be bringing forth the best that they can, according to whatever vision he has.

According, Beep, Electronic, Interfere, Reveal, Vision

I give myself to my parts as to a lover.

Acting, Give, Giving, Lover, Lovers, Parts

The arts stop society going rotten and mad.

Art, Arts, Mad, Rotten

The great writers like Chekhov know that tragedy and laughter are just a few steps from each other. . . but it took me a long time as an actress to learn that. Actually Arthur Miller taught me in the Seventies. We were making a CBS TV drama of his play Playing for Time about Auschwitz but the characters were laughing. It was a big insight for me to realise that that was what's called gallows humour, in this case worse than the gallows, that humans need to laugh and make jokes in order to survive.

Character, Drama, Laughter, Took, Worse, Writers

We all come to the theater with baggage; The baggage of our daily lives, the baggage of our problems, the baggage of our tragedies, the baggage of being tired. It doesn't matter what age you are. But if our hearts get opened and released - well, that's what theater can do, and does sometimes, and everyone is thankful when that happens.

Baggage, Heart, Opened, Problems, Tired, Tragedy

I think the theatre is as essential to civilization as safe, pure water.

Civilization, Safe, Theatre, Think, Thinking, Water

One must never comment as an actor, never show that a character is shallow or vindictive, but let that be conveyed. I mean, none of us thinks of ourselves as being vindictive or shallow - perhaps we should.

Actor, Character, Mean, Thinking, Vindictive

A theater is being given over to market forces, which means that a whole generation that should be able to do theater as well as see it is being completely deprived

Able, Generations, Market, Mean, See, Theater

On one occasion, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeremy Irons and myself were due to appear at the Sarajevo film festival and were turned off a UN plane on orders from Geneva. We had to get local journalists to transport the films in for us. I tell you this only to demonstrate that festivals can be a lifeline. But, after all the difficulties I'd had in getting there, in 1996 I found myself being flown in on a four-seater RAF plane as an official guest, endorsed by the British Embassy. Ironically, the film I was to present was Mission: Impossible.

Demonstrate, Four, Iron, Order, Orders, Raf

What a script says that isn't dialogue is as important as the spoken word.

Dialogue, Important, Says, Spoken, Spoken Word, Word

You can't do what you've been asked to do unless you do the best you can. And roughly speaking, the best you can do is to be very available as a character and actor to the people you're acting with. That's equally important, whether the camera's on the other person or on you.

Character, Equally, Important, People

Integrity is so perishable in the summer months of success.

Integrity, Perishable, Success, Summer

An awful lot of filmmaking and playmaking is taken over by marketers and publicists, who set about to tell people what to think. And people feel safer that way. But it's not safe, and the whole wonderful thing that cinema and filmmakers can contribute is to go into the not-safe land of real life.

Cinema, Marketers, Real, Taken, Think, Thinking

We will always want films. . . that basically are centred on young people, because young people is the way we live on, we older people, insofar as we live on.

Basically, Older, People, Want, Way

The people I admire most are those who struggle for everyone.

Admire, Everyone, People, Struggle

As a mother you have got to have a view for now and a view for the future.

Future, Mother, View, Views

One of the joys of cinema is that, given the right circumstances, and the genius director, an incredibly wonderfully actor can become the embodiment of his character.

Become, Character, Genius, Given, Joy, Joys

››

Vanessa Redgrave Biography

Contact Us

About us