Richard Eyre
Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBEis an English film, theatre, television and opera director...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth28 March 1943
arts behaviour believe creative difficult happiness ideas interest nourishing opening politics rather relationship society weapon
I believe there is a relationship between having an interest in the arts and the behaviour of society as a whole. Some politicians find it difficult that the arts is a weapon of happiness... Politics is often about deprivation rather than the opening up of ideas and nourishing creative endeavour.
above backstage heads passed restaurant shouting waiters whenever
Waiters are like actors waiting in the wings, bantering whenever we passed each other on the restaurant floor, shouting at each other backstage in the kitchen and winking and corpsing above the heads of our audience, the unsuspecting customers.
balanced blaming easily maybe slip
Maybe we slip so easily into blaming our parents - you're perpetually a child and they're perpetually a parent and you long to balance the equation, but it can only be balanced posthumously.
lives
A place makes a deep impression on you when you're young. It lives with you. It's like your childhood. It fertilises the imagination.
good
Every action has a consequence, so always try to be good.
happiness understanding
The arts are weapons of understanding and weapons of happiness.
art life private public rather
Art is about the 'I' in life not the 'we', about private life rather than public. A public life that doesn't acknowledge the private is a life not worth having.
art blown chemical classic engineer example grew household time until
I'm the classic example of alienation: I grew up in a middle-class household without art or books. I was going to be a chemical engineer until I went to the theatre for the first time at 16 and was blown away by it.
good guide highly stupid
All good actors are very bright. You can't be stupid and a good actor. You may be inarticulate, you may not be highly educated, but all good actors are quick-witted, some of them dazzlingly so. All you do is guide them.
acquired director experience minimalist until
You can't be minimalist as a director until you have acquired the experience and confidence to say no.
There are those who leave without our needing to detain them; we have said all there is to say.
live-life thinking people
I am interested in the gap between what people say and what they think - the undiscovered world of people's lives. Lives of quiet desperation.
pain grief character
We can alleviate physical pain, but mental pain - grief, despair, depression, dementia - is less accessible to treatment. It's connected to who we are - our personality, our character, our soul, if you like.
thinking self oysters
I can't think of anyone I admire who isn't fuelled by self-doubt. It's an essential ingredient. It's the grit in the oyster.