My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I studied Shakespeare all through high school. Both of my parents teach English and history, so it has always been around my experience as a young man.
I became an actor by doing school plays and youth theaters, and then National Youth Theatre of Great Britain. And then I did study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. For me that was a good way to enter the field, to work in the theater.
I trained as a dancer when I was much younger, for a large amount of time, like 6 or 7 years. Not to be a ballet dancer, actually, but I thought it was a complement for an actor. I thought that actors should know how to move, should know how to juggle, should know how to do acrobatics.
I worked in theater my whole life. My mom was a drama teacher at my middle school. In high school, I was Drama Club President every year, and then I auditioned for conservatory acting programs.
I started out doing a lot of theater, a lot of Shakespeare, classic plays.
I started working on stage as a dancer when I was four; by 14 or 15, I knew I wanted to study the craft of acting.
I joined the Royal Shakespeare Co. with no experience whatsoever - I'd never been to a drama school or anything. But I was strong and could lift things, I could move scenery about.
I studied movies for many years, but I am professionally an actor because I, my background is actually a stage actor and acting.
Originally I studied as a musician, a classical pianist. That was my career before I took up acting in my late 20s.
I went to drama school. I'm classically trained; I studied Shakespeare, blah blah blah. But I always preferred to do Oscar Wilde, or Shakespeare's comedies over his dramas.