It was never physically dangerous except when I nearly fell off a horse, but it was physically arduous - especially when you were working late at night.
From Derek Jacobi
One of the last episodes was all about a flood. We were working in the rain till all hours, and it was muddy and it was cold and it was damp, and it was hours under the hoses. That was not pleasant. That was not pleasant.
You have to pretend to live in those clothes that they lived in, to live within the climate that they had then. You have to imagine with the help, obviously, of all the other technicians that are around - the writer, the director, the other actors.
Actors, I don't think, ever really grow up. I'm hoping that that rejuvenating process applies to me, too. It has so far. I've been very lucky.
He was somebody who made me think, I suppose, about the contemplative life. I've always been a city fellow, but I've often had vague thoughts about 'checking out' and perhaps going into a monastery and just seeing what it was like.
Ultimately it's a leap of faith and a leap of imagination to put yourself back in time into those conditions and situations and see how you would react.
Originally they wanted it to be bigger, but I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded to have the smallest tonsure that they could get away with. A tonsure that could still be seen, but, I worried about my social life!
We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.
There's never been any game plan or thread through my career. It's just happened that I've ricocheted from one interesting character to another.
You have to get through the Hamlet hoop as a young actor. Your classical qualifications are based on the quality of your Hamlet. And then, as an older actor, you have to get through the Lear hoop. And I'm approaching the Lear hoop.
2 perspectives
1 perspectives