An actor and a [theatre] director are both what I would call interpreters of work. We interpret a work, just as a musician will interpret a composer's work, we interpret the work of a playwright. We are servants of the theatre and I've always believed that. We must serve what has been written, that's what we're there for.
George OgilvieIdentity is a very difficult thing in the theatre. As an actor said to me one day, 'What are we doing today?' when we were doing a workshop. And I said, 'Oh, just be yourself'. And he said to me, 'I don't know who that is, I'm an actor'. And I begin to realise in fact that we seek identity because we're told we should have one, but I wonder whether it's necessary.
George OgilvieAn actor and a [theatre] director are both what I would call interpreters of work. We interpret a work, just as a musician will interpret a composer's work, we interpret the work of a playwright. We are servants of the theatre and I've always believed that. We must serve what has been written, that's what we're there for.
George OgilvieWorld is full of followers and leaders, and I think that if one can become both and be both, to follow in order to lead, and to lead in order to follow, then I think you're on the right path.
George OgilvieThe word 'ego' is very important. The ego is an important element of being human, and of being creative. We need that ego in order to give us a confidence of doing what we're doing. Ego pushes us into the creative world in order to create for something more. I think that a great company of actors, they all have egos, very strong egos, but they're all prepared to share together in order to achieve something even better than that.
George OgilvieI spent a month in India and where I learnt an important word for me, for everything that had come before and after, and the was the word 'seva' - the work you do without wanting reward, simply for the work itself, for the spiritual, for the practice and the experience it gives you by doing that work. I began to realise it was something I was searching for all my life, that I was doing theatre not for myself but for something for a search, for a seeking for something that is behind that, to find a truth somewhere about us.
George Ogilvie