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British Actors Quotes

Voices from British actors on craft, training, and career.

These quotes gather British actors describing how their stage training shapes their approach, and how it compares to their American counterparts.

I confess I've got a yearning to go to Los Angeles, but I can't work out if it is because a lot of British actors seem to go or because there's this perception that the bottom has fallen out of...

Quotes by Richard C. Armitage

Some British actors are snobby about telly, and I don't understand that.

Quotes by Matthew Macfadyen

I did quite a lot of fencing when I was a kid. I was a swimmer, and I played a lot of basketball. I was a fencer for Great Britain, but I only did that because I watched 'Robin Hood,'...

Quotes by Kieran Bew

Coming from documentaries, my biggest challenge was to understand actors' psychologies. American actors take it all very seriously; British actors don't enter into all this methody way of doing things.

Quotes by Kevin Macdonald

About Quotes

American actors are very different to British actors who have generally studied and been brought up culturally with the sense that the writer is the star and that their job is to serve the writing. Whereas Hollywood actors are brought...

Quotes by Joe Wright

When I first did a U.S. pilot season, there were very few British actors schlepping around town trying to get into television. That was 1999.

Quotes by Jamie Bamber

There is a whole bunch of great British actors of my age who aren't film stars or theatre actors; they're very much both.

Quotes by Harry Lloyd

Not surprisingly, there is a cultural divide between American and British actors regarding the self-promotion associated with new media.

Quotes by Gina Bellman

I don't know why British actors are getting big parts in American TV shows. Maybe it's because we're cheap.

Quotes by Dominic West

Age Quotes

'Game of Thrones' is wonderful. My theory is they employ all these British actors because, one, they are like me and grateful. Two, we turn up, and we know our lines. Three, we don't demand a 60 ft. Winnebago and...

Quotes by Diana Rigg

Everyone the world over talks about British actors and British talent and I think that's because we were trained - until now - in theatre.

Quotes by Brenda Blethyn

I have to audition for everything; there is no Mrs. Robbie Williams free pass, and because I'm working with British actors everyone is so polite - no one mentions Robbie.

Quotes by Ayda Field

A lot of British actors will look at America as such a land of opportunity. In England, there's such a small pool of working actors of color. There's such a small amount of work that is actually produced in the...

Quotes by Aml Ameen

I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.

Quotes by Alfred Molina

Frequently Asked Questions

What do these British actors quotes mainly talk about?
They focus on the everyday realities of the acting profession in Britain, especially training, attitudes toward television work, and the experience of trying to break into the American market.
Do the quotes compare British and American actors?
Yes. One quote contrasts the two, suggesting British actors are often shaped by stage training and a tradition of serving the writer's material rather than headlining it. See American quotes for the other side of that comparison.
Is there anything here about attitudes toward television acting?
Yes, one quote notes that some British actors have historically looked down on television work, a snobbery the speaker says they never understood.
Do any quotes mention moving to Los Angeles?
One does, describing a mixed pull toward Los Angeles tied partly to a wider sense that opportunities back home had thinned out for British performers.
Is this page only about actors working today?
No, one quote looks back to 1999 during an early U.S. pilot season, when far fewer British actors were making that trip, showing how the landscape has shifted over time.

Several also reflect on the pull toward Los Angeles and what it meant to try television work there in earlier decades.