It took me two years to walk around a chair with ease; it took me another two years to learn how to laugh onstage - and I had to learn everything.
Laurence OlivierRead
My stage successes have provided me with the greatest moments outside myself, my film successes the best moments, professionally, within myself.
Interpretation
Olivier reflects on how his achievements in theater and film fulfill different aspects of his professional life.
Laurence Olivier expresses that the triumphs he experienced on stage brought him unparalleled joy and connection to others, while his achievements in film offered him profound personal satisfaction and introspection. This highlights the dual nature of success, where external recognition and internal fulfillment play unique roles in an artist's journey.
In practice
In a speech at a theater awards ceremony.
It took me two years to walk around a chair with ease; it took me another two years to learn how to laugh onstage - and I had to learn everything.
What is the main problem of the actor? It is to keep the audience awake, and not let them go to sleep, then wake up and go home feeling they've wasted their money.
Work is life for me, it is the only point of life - and with it there is almost religious belief that service is everything.
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.
Acting is an everlasting search for truth.
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.
That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem. It is a human problem.
In order to get as much fame as one's father one has to much more able than he.
Success is terrifying. Like happiness, it is often appreciated in retrospect. It's only later that you place it in perspective. Years from now, I'll look back and say, βGod, wasn't it wonderful.β
He moves fastest who moves alone.
As we are, so we do; and as we do, so is it done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes.
I couldn't beat people with my strength; I don't have a hard shot; I'm not the quickest skater in the league. My eyes and my mind have to do most of the work.
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