Derek Jacobi Quotes

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Derek Jacobi

Profession : Actor

Birth : October 22, 1938

Every person who is offered a knighthood has the opportunity to say yes or no. You get a letter from the Prime Minister saying you've been recommended for a knighthood and there are two little boxes, one says yes, one says no.

Derek Jacobi

I had to think long and hard about what it would imply, what it would mean. Would it mean any alterations of one's lifestyle? Or, more than that, the way that people regarded you? The way they reacted to you if you had a Sir in front of your name?

Derek Jacobi

Reputation is fine but you have to keep justifying it. In a sense, it makes it harder because people's expectations of you are higher. So, you have to fulfill those expectations. Or, try to exceed those expectations. But, it becomes more difficult as time goes on.

Derek Jacobi

I would like to be as fit as I've always been. I've been blessed with good health, I've been blessed with stamina. Particularly for those great classical roles, you need an Olympian stamina. I, fortunately, have that.

Derek Jacobi

I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're in the business of transferring emotions to other people.

Derek Jacobi

You have to pretend to live in those clothes that they lived in, to live within the climate that they had then. You have to imagine with the help, obviously, of all the other technicians that are around - the writer, the director, the other actors.

Derek Jacobi

It's often difficult to slough off all that we've acquired, all the comforts and safety nets modern life provides for us, and realize that in those days, people were living very much on the edge - life was incredibly hard!

Derek Jacobi

What was so good about it was that the set that they originally built stayed there, and weathered over the five years. It got five summers and five winters of weather. It became more and more authentic as we worked in it, and they added bits to it.

Derek Jacobi

It was never physically dangerous except when I nearly fell off a horse, but it was physically arduous - especially when you were working late at night.

Derek Jacobi

One of the last episodes was all about a flood. We were working in the rain till all hours, and it was muddy and it was cold and it was damp, and it was hours under the hoses. That was not pleasant. That was not pleasant.

Derek Jacobi

Originally they wanted it to be bigger, but I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded to have the smallest tonsure that they could get away with. A tonsure that could still be seen, but, I worried about my social life!

Derek Jacobi

My first course came and I put down my book, and I just happened to put up my hand to scratch my head and discovered that my toupee had been blown by the wind and was folded over backwards on the top of my head!

Derek Jacobi

I'd gone into that restaurant and sat down and the waitress had taken my order and everybody else had seen me with this what must have looked like this creature, this animal, sitting on the top of my head!

Derek Jacobi

It was doing very well; it was doing particularly well outside of England. It was a very big seller for Carlton Television. But it was getting more and more expensive to do.

Derek Jacobi

I thought it was getting better and better, because the production values were increasing each time we did it.

Derek Jacobi

He was somebody who made me think, I suppose, about the contemplative life. I've always been a city fellow, but I've often had vague thoughts about 'checking out' and perhaps going into a monastery and just seeing what it was like.

Derek Jacobi

I never lose that terror of 'this is my last job, I'll never work again.' You can never relax and rely on whatever reputation you've built.

Derek Jacobi