The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!
Ben KingsleyRead
One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Drama has the power to change our understanding of everyday concepts.
Ben Kingsley highlights the transformative potential of drama, suggesting that it can reshape how we perceive and define fundamental human emotions and concepts like love, home, and loyalty. By presenting these themes through dramatic storytelling, audiences can find new meanings and insights, reminding us that even tragedy can serve a greater purpose in broadening our emotional vocabulary and understanding.
Themes
DramaTransformationEmotionArtUnderstandingTragedy
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of theater on community values, this quote can illustrate how drama shapes our perceptions.
More from Ben Kingsley
All quotes →In cinema, the leading player is the director.
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Somewhere in your career, your work changes. It becomes less anal, less careful and more spontaneous, more to do with the information that your soul carries.
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When I choose a role it's either because I recognise the man, or that I'm very curious to know him. If I neither recognise nor know him, then it is better that I don't play him.
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It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity.
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I think that all of us either lose touch with the child inside us or try and hold onto it because it so precious to us and it's such an extraordinary part of our lives.
Ben KingsleyRead
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