When I die, it's going to read, 'Game Show Fixture Passes Away.' Nothing about the theater, or Tony Awards, or Emmys. But it doesn't bother me.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Television has never known what to do with grief, which resists narrative: the dramas of grief are largely internal - for the bereaved, it is a chaotic, intense, episodic period, but the chaos is by and large subterranean, and easily appears static to the friendly onlooker who has absorbed the fact of loss and moved on.
When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask.
I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.
When I get to my deathbed, I don't want to take my last breath and say, Well, how glorious. I've left the world my acting credits. I won't even think that.
What I love about theatre is that it disappears as it happens.
Spare me the whispering, crowded room, the friends who come and gape and go, the ceremonious air of gloom - all, which makes death a hideous show.
I hate when the major event of a show I watch is spoiled for me. And I'm wracked with guilt when/if I spoil something for someone else.
Characters die all the time. At times, they die amongst a reader's tears, and at others, amongst the applause, and some, still, in quiet satisfaction.
When you're tied to one show, you are very much at the mercy of the writers, so you can suddenly get a script where you have a heart attack and die.
Audiences aren't going to get rid of me. One thing I can say, with absolute certainty, is that my shows will still be performed when I'm dead, buried and forgotten. They're going to absolutely outlive me, which is a wonderful thing to think about.