actors-from-wales

"The greatest redemption is between the war of two evils, their very retaliation reveals their goodly nature."

"Change the subject...actually give me a cigarette and then change the subject."

"I don't have many friends, so I try and be there for the ones that do make it that far."

"This champagne's made by the French and no mistake, you can tell by the shape of the bubbles.."

"Ghosts?...Yes nasty little buggers.."

"Even in your last fragile moments, I will forever be your gentle svelte with rosy cheeks as you are, were and always shall be my little ones."

"Old things do not interest me, I like new things for the simple reason that they never get old."

"Down like a Welsh town."

"There are three things in a Woman's life that should never be empty, her heart, bed and glass."

"It's in weather such as this, I'm glad that I'm human."

"A young ticket should never be envied, they queue for the bus the same as us."

"I think that the original movie, for anyone who’s a fan of it and fell in love with it, I do think melancholy is an intrinsic part of it. That’s part of the charm of it and the love of it. And so given the fact that [director Louis Letterier] and Lisa and the whole team have set about making this story very much in the spirit of the original, there is an element of melancholy to it and I think that’s part of its charm."

"With all the wonderful vegetarian foods available today, it doesn’t take a mentalist to realize that eating meat just doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s not healthy, it’s devastating to our planet, and it means a cruel and painful death for literally billions of animals every year. So why not give vegetarianism a try? You will have a lot more energy, you can lose weight, and best of all you will know that you are creating a better world for all the animals that live here."

"I've seen how violently animals raised for food are treated, and I don't want to support that. … The fact that the meat on my plate was once a living, breathing creature became something I could no longer ignore or justify as food. … As someone who felt they were a confirmed meat-eater, I guess ultimately if I can do it, then anyone can, you know―it’s a really easy choice to make. And it’s a humane choice to make."

"Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows. I’d hate to live like that, wouldn’t you? We see them, mind you, on television today, many brilliant people who are professional atheists who say they know for a fact that it’s insanity to have a God or to believe in religion. Well, OK, God bless them for feeling that way and I hope they’re happy. But I couldn’t live with that certainty, and I wonder about some of them: why are they protesting so much? How are they so sure of what is out there? And who am I to refute the beliefs of so many great philosophers and martyrs all the way down the years?"

"To act is to decieve, and to decieve, one must forget oneself."

"I don’t know what it is, truthfully, I think part of it is being still and all that. I don’t know. I like to kind of come in at the side door. I like to act like a submarine; just don’t do much and just let it evolve. It’s resisting the urge to push the envelope. It’s very difficult for an actor to avoid, you want to show a bit. But I think the less one shows the better"

"Many do not understand how precarious Western civilisation is and what a joy it is. From it, we get real democracy. From it, we get the sort of intellectual tolerance that allows me to propound something that may be completely alien to you. I'm burying my career so substantially in these interviews that it's painful. But I think there are some questions that demand honest answers."

"There is an extraordinary silence in the West. Basically, Christianity in the Middle East and in Africa is being wiped out – I mean not just ideologically but physically, and people are being enslaved and killed because they are Christians. And your country and my country (Wales) are doing nothing about it. ... This is a unique age. We don't want to be judgmental. Every other age that's come before us has believed exactly the opposite. I mean, T.S. Eliot referred to 'the common pursuit of true judgement.' Yes, that's what it's about. Getting our judgments right, getting them accurate. ... We have lost our moral compass completely, and unless we find it, we’re going to lose our civilization. I think we're going to lose Western European Christian civilization anyway."

"It's easy to lose a civilization. The values of Western civilization have brought so much good to the world: the notions of equality, democracy, tolerance, abolition of slavery... Tolkien knew that civilization is worth fighting for. There are times when a generation is challenged and must fight to defend their civilization from annihilation."

"Western Christianised Europe has values and experience that is worth defending."

"There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren't bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well. By 2020, 50 per cent of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent. I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged. And if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilisation. That does have a real resonance with me."

"He has a terrific way with women. I don't think he has missed more than half a dozen."

"I wanted that diamond because it is incomparably lovely. And it should be on the loveliest woman [Elizabeth Taylor] in the world."

"I have always felt that the camera hasn't liked me. I'm a stage animal. I have to be big and loud, and the camera needs you to be small and naturalistic and subtle; much more naturalistic. I'm as subtle as a buffalo stampede."

"Monogamy is absolutely imperative. The minute you start fiddling around outside the idea of monogamy, nothing satisfies anymore. Suppose you make love to an exciting woman other than your wife, it can’t remain enough to go bed with her there must be something else, something more than the absolute compulsion of the body. But if there is something more, it will eventually destroy either you or your marriage."

"Although I like to be thought of as a tough rugby-playing Welsh miner's son, able to take on the world, the reality is that this image is just superficial. I am the reverse of what people think."

"It's difficult for me to know where to start with rugby. I come from a fanatically rugby-conscious Welsh miner's family, know so much about it, have read so much about it, have heard with delight so many massive lies and stupendous exaggerations about it and have contributed my own fair share, and five of my six brothers played it, one with some distinction... it's difficu1t for me to know where to start so I’ll begin with the end. The last shall be first, as it is said, so I'll tell you about the last match I ever played in...I had played the game representatively from the age of ten until those who employed me in my profession, which is that of actor, insisted that I was a bad insurance risk against certain dread teams in dead-end valleys who would have little respect, no respect, or outright disrespect for what I was pleased to call my face. What if I were unfortunate enough to be on the deck in the middle of a loose maul...they murmured in dollar accents?"

"Richard Burton is now my epitaph, my cross, my title, my image. I have achieved a kind of diabolical fame. It has nothing to do with my talents as an actor. That counts for little now. I am the diabolically famous Richard Burton."

"At two years' old, Richard was scooped up by his sister Cecilia or ‘Cis’, and taken to live with her and her husband, Elfed, and their two daughters Marian and Rhianon, in Port Talbot. He remained forever grateful to Cis throughout his varied and colourful life."

"The magnificent baritone was not merely a voice. It was an orchestra of enormous range and power, its graceful sound seemed to linger on for millions who had heard it on film and stage. Homer must have known someone very much like Richard Burton."

"[He was] the 12th of 13 children of a hard-drinking but charming coal miner in the village of Pontryhydfen, South Wales...At the age of 10, he was educated under the tutorship of a schoolmaster named Philip Burton who became his guardian and young Richard took his name."

"In the Druid's Rest, Richard won the role in which he made his London debut at age 18. In a wretched part, he showed exceptional ability."

"He was a Welsh coal miner's son whose celebrity was defined as much by his rakish personal life as his remarkable acting skills...One of Britain's greatest Shakespearean stage actors by the age of 27, he offered rugged good looks, a magnetic stage presence and an incomparable voice...[His voice]'with a tympanic resonance so rich and overpowering that it could give an air of verse to a recipe for stewed hare."

"a monstrous perfectionist and a troubled spirit."

"He should have been in the same rank as Laurence Olivier, but he was very wild and had a scandal around him all the time and I think in theater circles that would not be approved of."

"a born actor...He was serious, charming, with tremendous skill...He chose a rather mad way of throwing away his theater career but obviously he became very famous and a world figure through being a film star. He was awfully good to people and generous."

"He was marvellous at rehearsals. There was the true theatrical instinct. You only had to indicate - scarcely even that."

"Throughout his life he would quote and write in his Notebooks chunks of John Donne, Edward Jones, John Betjeman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Dunbar, Shakespeare and his greatest read Dylan Thomas. Dylan became his hero. Sweetly, their paths would later cross and a good friendship would grow."

"Money was nice but it was not everything to the actor whose greatest joys were words, words, and words."

"Burton ‘was now the natural successor to Olivier."

"A brimming pool running disturbingly deep...His voice is urgent and keen... He turned interested speculation into awe as soon as he started to speak."

"Exceptional ability."

"From scandalous beginning to tormented end, theirs was the most epic love story in Hollywood history: a blaze of headlines, booze, jewels, brawls, and private jets. Marrying and divorcing twice, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton rocked the culture and each other's lives with a passion that reverberated long after Burton’s 1984 death."

"Surrounded by his thousand treasured volumes of the Everyman's Library—a gift from Elizabeth—he wrote a letter to Elizabeth and posted it to her home in Bel Air, in Los Angeles. But by the time she received the letter, Burton was dead. He had gone to bed and sometime during the night suffered a cerebral hemorrhage."

"A gifted actor who rose to fame due to a combination of raw sex appeal, talent, and his grand romance with Elizabeth Taylor. He was ruggedly handsome and blessed with a mellifluous baritone that could make the reading of a dictionary sound like poetry. Many critics lamented the fact that he didn't live up to his potential."

"Alcoholism began taking its toll on Burton and, perhaps even more insidiously, his disregard for his craft began to tell. He cared little for his movie projects except for the cash they might earn him, a fact he readily acknowledged. Yet, despite his many mediocre movies, his appeal as an actor was undeniable, and he did occasionally soar in a few of his later movies,"

"Burton's much ballyhooed affair with Elizabeth Taylor during the making of Cleopatra turned him into an international sex symbol. He was Mark Antony to Taylor's Cleopatra, and the press went wild with the story. Until then, he was considered the heir to Olivier as England's greatest actor."

"Make up your mind, dear heart. Do you want to be a great actor or a household word?" Burton's reply was, "Both.""

"If I had a chance for another life, I would certainly choose a better complexion... I rather like my reputation, actually, that of a spoiled genius from the Welsh gutter, a drunk, a womanizer; it's rather an attractive image. When he reached the age of 50, after a five-year career slump. I can only say with Edith Piaf, 'Je ne regrette rien'."