Movies are a complicated collision of literature, theatre, music and all the visual arts.

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

I used to work in a hotel kitchen at night and do theatre in the morning. After finishing my night shift - I did it for two years - I used to come back and sleep for five hours and then do theatre from 2-7 P.M. and then again hotel work from 11-7 in the morning.

My mom was a pillar of support to my father in his theatre endeavors.

I trained at RADA, then went into the theatre, but TV is like starting at the bottom again. I have just been learning.

Individual and corporate support is vital to building on London's leadership in the arts, and I hope others will join me in wanting to build on the National's role at the heart of modern theatre and sustaining it long into the future.

An actor is supposed to emulate life. Instead, alas, many are imitating other actors. You don't fashion your knowledge of theatre or your approach to a role on the basis of what other actors have done. This kind of thinking is a great danger, especially in dealing with TV producers who frequently say things like, 'This is a Sean Connery type.'

I write what I like to read, and I enjoy love triangles in YA and adult fiction - not to mention in other media like TV, opera, theatre, and even in video games! I relish when dark and compelling characters compete for our protagonist's heart. The doubts, the uncertainty - the jealousy! - can be breathtaking.

I did an A Level in Theatre Studies and had a really inspirational teacher, and then I just went on to university.

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.

Theatre is about the collective imagination... Everything I use on-stage is driven by the subject matter and what you might call the text - but that text can be anything, from a fragment of movement or music to something you see on a TV.

I hope it's always going to be a mix between theatre, film and radio. I've been very lucky living in London that you can do all that - in New York and L.A., there's more of a structure for film in L.A. and theatre in New York. In London, our industry is smaller, but it produces brilliant work all in one place.

Great theatre is about challenging how we think and encouraging us to fantasize about a world we aspire to.

I've always been short and stocky. So when I got into repertory theatre after graduation, I found myself doing character roles: because of my deep voice, shape and height, I was playing 40-year-old, 50-year-old roles at the age of 23.

Work begets work. Just work. If you work, people will find out about you and want to work with you if you're good. So work anywhere you can. That's why I've changed my mind about these theatres where people work for free or have to pay money. I think it's kind of terrible that they feel they have to, but you know what? They're working.

I come from the New York theatre world, and I have a lot of gay male friends, so this friendship of Will and Grace's isn't such a stretch.

I remember that Pu La had come for one of my premieres and I was patiently waiting to hear his verdict of my acting, but when he came out of the theatre during interval, all he asked me was about my father and his well being, such was their friendship.

Whenever I'm in theatre situations I will go out of my way not to talk about my father, but in the film world I can be really proud of my family and say, 'You know what: my dad's a really, really famous theatre director,' because nobody has any idea.

The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they're doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living.

I am extraordinarily lucky, I was born in a family of strong moral values, and in my life I was able to do what I liked best: debuts, great theatres, but above all, inner and deep satisfaction.

I like the detail work of telling a story in small pieces, as is done in movie-making, and also the long leap of faith needed to see a theatre performance through each night. Both require focus and self-discipline.

Mum wasn't at all religious, but she thought that going to the theatre was as important a ceremonial, communal experience that a person could have.

Memory is not an instrument for exploring the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, as the ground is the medium in which dead cities lie interred.

Growing up with a bold feminist in my mother, I witnessed her march magnificently from mini to maxi, fashions so obviously linked to powerful statements of female progression, equality and recognition. I knew no other than freedom of expression in all the forms it came in; art, theatre, fashion, literature and music.