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When you're playing King Lear, you have to have a little humour, or you will have no tragedy when the king dies.

I used to think 'King Lear' was an analysis of insanity, but I don't really think it is. When Lear is supposed to be at his most insane, he is actually understanding the world for the first time.

I have no desire to play King Lear or Hamlet. I never had a grand ambition. I just followed my nose.

King Lear alone among these plays has a distinct double action. Besides this, it is impossible, I think, from the point of view of construction, to regard the hero as the leading figure.

Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.'

I think you need brains to do any Shakespeare with any authority. I could do Shakespeare, but not with any authority.

I've definitely learned that if you want to have power as a woman in Shakespeare's time, and it's still relevant today, that you have to play a different game than men play, and you have to be a lot cleverer.

I'm mainly an airport author, and if you're trying to take your mind off the journey, you're not going to read 'King Lear.'

'King Lear,' I've been seeing all my life. I mean, the great actors of my lifetime... to join their company, as it were, by playing a part that's challenged them, is one of the great joys of being an actor who does the classics.