Actors From England

"You must believe he has enough drive to become king. Thorin must be physically capable of doing so."

"The sacred ape, now, children, see. He's searching for the modest flea. If he should turn around we'd find He has no hair on his behind."

"The little penguins look alike Even as Ike resembles Mike. They are so gentle and so nice God keeps these little birds on ice."

"The plural of goose is geese, But the plural of moose ain't meese, And the plural of noose ain't neese, But the plural of goose — is geese."

"Now, children, you must never laugh At the stately tall giraffe. She's sensitive, as you can tell; But, my dears, she kicks like hell!"

"In this mechanic age the skunk Inspires no terror — he's the bunk; For people in cars, Returning from bars, Quite frequently flatten the skunk."

"The cow's a gentle, patient soul, With milk she fills the flowing bowl. She's kind to babies, mean to flies, She has the most coquettish eyes."

"And here’s the happy, bounding flea — You cannot tell the he from she. The sexes look alike, you see; But she can tell, and so can he."

"Let's eat, drink, and play till the worms do corrupt us, 'Tis certain, Post mortem Nulla voluptas."

"We'll sport and be free with Moll, Betty, and Dolly, Have oysters and lobsters to cure melancholy: Fish-dinners will make a lass spring like a flea, Dame Venus, love's lady, Was born of the sea."

"Your most beautiful bride who with garlands is crown'd And kills with each glance as she treads on the ground... Though now she be pleasant and sweet to the sense, Will be damnable mouldy a hundred years hence."

"If, sir, I possessed, as you suggest, the power of conveying unlimited sexual attraction through the potency of my voice, I would not be reduced to accepting a miserable pittance from the BBC for interviewing a faded female in a damp basement."

"Before he could go to New York he had to get a U.S. visa at the American consulate in Toronto. He was called upon to fill in a long form with many questions, including "Is it your intention to overthrow the Government of the United States by force?" By the time Harding got to that one he was so irritated that he answered: "Sole purpose of visit.""

"One day, when we were doing a read-through, the boys realised they had forgotten to cast another male to be in a jungle sketch. Rather than make an urgent phone call, Michael suggested that I do it instead. It turned out to be one of my most enjoyable sketches, because it was so silly! I'm dressed exactly as they are, in khaki shorts and a pith helmet, with a huge moustache and speaking in a very low gravelly voice. There was no disguising I'm a female though, as I still have my lipstick and false eyelashes on. After that they often put me in men's roles!"

"… I had to read [the script for the first episode of Flying Circus] several times in order to try and make some sense of it. The sketches ended strangely or sometimes didn't seem to end at all! Others had an odd beginning too. It certainly wasn't the sort of humour I was used to and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it all."

"Carol … was the unsung heroine because she was so spot on. We never had to tell her how to play a scene, she just had a Python way of thinking about it."

"I was a great Lucille Ball fan. I did actually want to be Lucille Ball. Or Marilyn Monroe. I didn't care which."

"When [the Pythons] discovered that I had a flair for comedy, the roles got more interesting. Michael … was always the one [to recommend me]; I think if it hadn't been for Michael, I probably always would have just been the glamour stooge."

"We didn't know who she was when we started the series. John Howard Davies cast her and we all liked her, so from then on, we used her for all but the more upper-class roles. We simply liked what she did; she was very easy to get along with, she could be very silly when required and she didn't have an excessive sense of dignity."

"Anyone who has witnessed Bill Oddie’s passion for nature, or watched the personable and wonderfully erudite wildlife presenter in action, might be forgiven for thinking that he could never really have been anything else. But such a role was not the natural end of a career that began with comedy sketches in a university amateur drama club. While most young people will recognise Oddie from such well-loved programmes as the BBC’s ' and ', his career is really a tale of two halves, and “the comedy years”, as he laughingly refers to them, made up a considerable period of his life. He was at Cambridge at the same time as and , and later become part of the comedy trio ‘’, whose humorous sketches delighted audiences throughout the 70s."

"… 84% of people in England and Wales want foxhunting to remain illegal. That’s the kind of public support most politicians only dream of. Rather than pandering to a vocal minority who want to return Britain to the dark ages of animal cruelty “for fun”, we call on all politicians not only to reject any repeal, weakening or substitution of the but also to support its strengthening and its better enforcement."

"... in many ways, the days of conservation are, sadly, a little bit numbered ... the point I'm trying to make is ... how much wildlife has decreased or, in some cases, completely disappeared. But, the only places where our wildlife is flourishing — and this is really, more or less, all over the world — are ... s ... Managing a reserve is really just on a big scale."

"I could sit and watch this sort of thing for ages — and, in fact, I do. Absolute routine — having had my breakfast down the road maybe. It's come back here, feed the birds ... and just take half an hour, often with a camera ..."

"... a hundred and fifty s — that is not natural ... Very little is this garden is actually you know, on any grand scale, natural. But it is friendly."

"If you report what you think is a , which actually turns out to be a funny robin, you can validly distract from your error by claiming that an aberrant robin is actually ornithologically more intriguing than a Red-flanked Bluetail."

"The truth is, every single British reptile is somewhere in . ... They call 'em the big six. Actually, it's the fairly small, slithery six. ... It's , , s ..., (which is, in fact, a lizard) — there are two real lizards ... ... and ... ..."

"The least drop in the world I do not mind: "Cognac"'s a noun I never yet declin'd."

"Smart soldiers like to be well tightened in: Loose habits would destroy all discipline."

"Life's too short for chess."

"My dog, who picks up everything one teaches, Has got "three heads," like Mr. Gladstone's speeches, But, as might naturally be expected, His are considerably more connected."

"Love levels all,—it elevates the clown, And often brings the fattest people down."

"This gardener's rule applies to youth and age, When young sow wild oats, but when old grow sage."

"[His eponymous role in Hancock's Half Hour wasn't] a character I put on and off like a coat. It's a part of me and a part of everybody I see."

"I wouldn't expect happiness. I don’t. I don’t think it is possible. But I'm very fortunate to be able to work in something that I like... The only happiness I could achieve would be to perfect the talent I have, however small it may be ... and if such a time came when I found that I had come to the end of what I could develop out of my own ability, limited however it may be, then I wouldn’t want to do it anymore."

"The only ego I've got is when I'm performing."

"My abiding memory ... is my mother’s reaction. [...] She and my father attended a big first night at the Vic, with all the glitterati there — Judy Garland and goodness knows who else. My poor parents were gobsmacked. Anyway, Sir Laurence comes up at the reception and asks my mother if she has seen the Othello film yet. "Oh yes, we thought it was very good, Sir Laurence," she replies, "but that was a bugger of a wig you made Derek wear." She was quite right. It was a bugger of a wig — but I just wanted the ground to swallow us up."

"Isn't it fascinating that probably the only laugh this man will ever get in his life is by stripping off his clothes and showing his shortcomings."

"Going to war was the only unselfish thing I have ever done for humanity."

"Can you imagine being wonderfully over-paid for dressing up and playing games?"

"Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don't take anything too seriously, it'll all work out in the end."

"Whenever I break down a character, the first thing I do is I’ll pick out the moments that I relate to with the character. I build on that. That’s how I make a character that is true to myself while representing different things."

"As an actor, your face is your superpower. If you take that away, and put someone in a mask, it’s really difficult to emote. Having done that for maybe eight years has given me a great sense of confidence in my physicality."

"My biggest flaw is probably my attention span or lack thereof. And while it might seem contradictory, my biggest strength is my work ethic."

"The 20-year goal is to be a film director. The 15-year goal is to win an Oscar. The five-year goal is to just keep enjoying myself. I really am having the time of my life. But as far as my future goes, I want to stretch myself as an actor in a way that Jake Gyllenhaal, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Meryl Streep do. I don’t want to be stuck to one character. I think that’s what can happen when you take on a superhero movie."

"It’s tough when every time you leave your front door, you are working. You’re on camera. I can’t walk around New York without clicking everywhere I go. And social media was bringing that outside world into my house. I just had to get rid of it. I needed to get back to reality, remind myself of who I am and where I’m from, and just live my life as normally as possible, in my abnormal way. Which is my career, I guess."

"I wouldn’t say I particularly have a history of issues with mental health. I just feel like I am a young person living in a world where we are expected to share every moment online. We are under the pressures of public opinion and other people’s opinions, and you’ve got these pressures of delivering to a certain standard. And it’s stressful. It’s hard."

"I haven’t quite found someone yet that I think I could call ‘my therapist.’ But I think it’s an incredibly honorable profession. I should find someone. I’m going to look further."

"For me, when it comes to looking for the next job, it’s about the message, and that is the same thing for Spider-Man."

"Mental health is a slightly more complicated subject because you can’t see it, and the pain is internal. So, to try and build a platform that has more compassion, that has more sympathy and more understanding to the internal struggles that many people are going through on a daily basis, is a really wonderful thing that I think we’ve achieved with the show, and I’m hoping that the general public will pick up on that message."

"I really am a massive fan of making movies, but I really do not like Hollywood. It is not for me. The business really scares me. I understand that I’m a part of that business and I enjoy my kind of interactions with it, but that said, I am always looking for ways to kind of remove myself from it to kind of just live as normal a life as possible."