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Shakespeare teaches you how to act. You come out of this process as a better actor. It's just the nature of the words he writes.

I'm constantly intimidated by Shakespeare's work. Trying to decipher what he's saying and holding on to that thought - not just as an actor, but as a human being - is a rigour.

I've been with Shakespeare all my life.

With Shakespeare, the hard work is to find out why he said it and how it can relate to the audience.

It's not that Shakespeare is frivolous, but you spend your time just getting people to dress up in other people's costumes and pretending to be people that they're not, and you think, after the years go by, well, what on earth was all that about?

I have grown up loving Shakespeare.

Shakespeare reveals human nature brilliantly: he shines a light on our instinctive desire to dominate each other.

I wasn't always such a great fan of Shakespeare, mind you. I can guess we all at one time had it rammed down our necks at school, which tends to take the edge off it.

Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.

Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he may teach us how to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves... he may teach us how to accept change in ourselves as in others, and perhaps even the final form of change.