"I've been to Sarajevo a few times and have got to know a lot of people there who put on plays during the siege. I wanted to share in that because I knew it was important to them . . . I began to see something of what was going on there in terms of actually keeping up people's spirit to resist - the resistance that causes change - even in the worst imaginable circumstances. And I realized that it paralleled the same spirit that existed during the Holocaust and in the gulag. Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living. That experience changed me, because I realized that if, as actors or writers or directors or designers, we can keep the will to resist alive in as many people as possible, then that's what we are about, and that's what we can do. It's more and more important because of the terrible things that are happening in our cities and the political and economic agendas that various governments have."
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Academy Award winnersPolitical activistsSocialists from EnglandActresses from LondonWomen activists from England
Original Language: English
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From an interview with Wallace Shawn, as cited in "Mission: possible - interview with actress Vanessa Redgrave”, Interview (April 1997)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Vanessa_Redgrave
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Vanessa Redgrave
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