Class I to XII wasn't much help; I was always a mediocre student. But when I pursued higher education and studied economics with theatre or psychology with science fiction, I got a whole new world view.
Tragedy is the oldest form of theatre.
Soon I worked during twelve years in theater works of the prestigious Theatre National Populaire. It was the best time of my life, the most difficult, the most interesting, the most exciting.
I was a musical theatre geek in high school and college.
I had to try to understand how much of a taboo it was. My mum worked in ballet and theatre when she was younger, and I had been brought up around lots of gay people, so I had never had any issue and couldn't imagine how hard it was to be out.
Theatre reminds me of Bollywood.
I love going to see the theatre whether it's a Broadway play or a Russian ballet company.
It's pretty easy in theatre. The comedy's either physical or verbal, and you're looking at the whole frame at once. But TV executives want close-ups. I keep telling them to look at Preston Sturges' movies. He'll do a whole scene without a cut in it, and it's a riot.
By and large, the theatre establishment is run by a white majority.
I don't want my work to be heavy. The challenge is to make it interesting and engaging, keeping in mind the need for method acting. This is what I have learnt from Bharat Muni's 'Natya Shastra' and from the Russian theatre legend Stanislavsky.
In school, I always sang in choirs. In fact, I used to do a lot of musicals in the youth theatre that I was a member of between the ages of 16 and 18.
I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can't get a dramatic role to save my life!
The theatre training is second to none in Ireland and England. You meet people who haven't had theatre training - it is harder for people who worked in TV to go into theatre than the other way around.
I started in theatre. I went to the Boston Conservatory and majored in musical theater.
I guess I've been extremely keen on theatre, on getting on to the stage, taking on different roles, enacting vocations, personalities, people, situations, and I guess that's the interest that has driven me to work in movies.
I try to work on a film that my audiences would appreciate and enjoy their time in a theatre.
Now I'm on television, I'm far more conscious of my skin than I used to be - I would often leave the theatre with layers of pancake make-up still on my face, but on a medium such as TV, I have to be more fastidious.
People know that they're going to see something which is entertaining but challenging as well because of the form it's in. It's dance theatre and it requires you to use your imagination - it's not straight forward.
I've done panel shows, which I enjoy, and on those you're recording half-an-hour of TV and sometimes they film for two hours. But with 'Britain's Got Talent,' you're on camera for eight hours, with a large theatre audience watching - and in between you're being filmed for ITV2 as you eat your lunch.
When I'm doing theatre, I feel like my life's on hold. Even though you might go out for a coffee, or go and see a film, your brain is still there, pulling you back to it.
I know I'll always want to come back to theatre, and I also thought if I can crack classical acting, everything else will probably seem easier.
I grew up seeing a lot of theatre, and it was theatre that really seduced me into acting - not film or television.
My mother was a leading lady in a local theatre in Birmingham, Alabama, where I grew up.
There is always a sacred hour in the theatre - after rehearsals and before performances, in the afternoon, between three and five o'clock. Normally the theatre is empty then, and this is a wonderful hour.
Theatre is a series of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
I just enjoy acting, whatever area - theatre, film, television.
I have done theatre, and I enjoy the process of smaller films a lot more. When I do such films, there are certain things which I get to do which are untapped. The scenes give me the liberty to play and mould the character in accordance to the director's mindset.
So you might say, 'Why do you end up making theatre in a world in which there is already too much of that? Creating layer upon layer of artifice?' Perhaps the function is to pierce through that cloud and show reality - so the function of art is to make things - to show: 'Hang on, this is real.'
I find it difficult to remember lines. When I'm doing a long speech for television, I sometimes have an earpiece with someone feeding me the text. But I can get by in the theatre if I study hard for a couple of months.
The musical has always been in jeopardy - until - or was in jeopardy until it was realised that it is probably the safest living theatre art form.
In the field of higher ed, many have asked whether (or when) digital education will replace on-campus education. I wonder the opposite. Cinema never replaced theatre. TV didn't replace radio. I wonder how different digital education will be from classrooms, and where it will lead us.
I love theatre because that is my foundation. So, if I had to make a choice in terms of where I get the most fulfillments, it would be theatre. The reaction is so immediate, unlike with TV and film.
In my freshman year in high school, I went to the only public high school in Boston with a theatre program.
Modelling was not very satisfying for me. I came to London to model, and I fell in love with the theatre. I was eating yoghurt every day so that I had the money to go to the theatre. I saw everything. It's still my dream to be on stage in London.
I would do theatre till I die. Theatre keeps your honesty alive. You can't pollute yourself. You learn a lot, and you use theatre techniques in life.
Looking at the actors I most admire - Judi Dench, Ian Holm, that whole generation - they all started in rep and slowly built themselves into the position where they could juggle theatre and film.
