Quote

I had never done a 90-minute play with no intermission, so it is a bit like you get onto the train and you don't get off until it's over - and it's over very quickly, so don't miss a moment of it. That experience is very rare and specific so don't miss a minute, because there aren't very many minutes of it.

When we watch a play under the standard circumstances, we've lost volition and time is passing. A still play feels like an existential threat.

I get the impression sometimes that a play arrives in a sequence of events that I have no control over.

When you do a play, you have all this time to rehearse and grow into the character. In television, even though you're waiting and waiting and waiting, once you're actually on set engaging in the scene with another actor, time is of the essence.

In a play, you know where you start and end and all the stops you have to do, but in television, you can't construct this carefully planned out arc for your character. You often get a script and you're shooting it two days later, and you don't know what's going to happen next. It's one of the harder things that I've done.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

I don't believe moviegoers don't have patience. Screenwriters are told a scene can't be longer than three minutes, that you have to cut to the chase. Not true!

What I love about a play is that it's such an investment because only time can create a lot of what happens onstage.

There are times when you do a play when you are living in the character over a two-and-a-half-hour period or longer, and you come to the end of the night, and you can feel like you were hit by a truck.