Paul Scofield

David Paul Scofield, CH, CBE (21 January 1922 – 19 March 2008) was an award-winning English actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield won both an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his role as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons.

Quotes

King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare — or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.

• If you want a title, what's wrong with Mr? If you have always been that, then why lose your title?
  I have a title, which is the same one that I have always had.
  But it's not political. I have a CBE, which I accepted very gratefully.
  • On his refusal of a knighthood.
  • "Paul Scofield: Man for all seasons", BBC News (2000-12-30)

• I found at this point that effective acting wasn't what I wanted to do, that I didn't want to make effects, that I wanted, as it were, to leave an impression of a particular kind of human being.
  • Quoted in Garry O'Connor, Paul Scofield: An Actor for All Seasons (Applause Books, 2002, ISBN 1-557-83499-7), ch. 22 (p. 131)

• King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare — or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear.
  • Quoted in Royah Nikkhah, "Scofield's Lear voted the greatest Shakespeare performance", Telegraph.co.uk (2004-08-22)

• As an actor I don't admit to any limitations. In rehearsal one comes up against apparently insuperable barriers, but if one can imaginatively get past them, overreach one's natural reach, it is astonishing how elastic one can become. I've got to go not so far as I can, but as far as is needed. It's up to somebody else to say if I've made a fool of myself.
  • Quoted in Lyn Gardner, Obituary: Paul Scofield, The Guardian (2008-03-20)

• Oh, I suppose my wife and I will open a bottle of champagne with another couple.
  • On being told that he had won an Oscar for Best Actor (1967)
  • Quoted in Robert Simonson, "Paul Scofield, Commanding Actor of the British Stage, Is Dead at 86", Playbill (2008-03-20)

• I decided a long time ago I didn’t want to be a star personality and live my life out in public. I don’t think it’s a good idea to wave personality about like a flag and become labeled.
  • Quoted in Benedict Nightingale, "Paul Scofield, British Actor, Dies at 86", The New York Times (2008-03-21)

• As you get older, the more you know, so the more nervous you become. The risks are much bigger.
  • Quoted in Benedict Nightingale, "Paul Scofield, British Actor, Dies at 86," The New York Times (2008-03-21)

• It isn't difficult to leave King Lear or Macbeth, but once you have gone back to yourself, you want it to be the same self you have always been.
  • Quoted in Alan Strachan, "Paul Scofield: Oscar-winning actor whose phenomenal range was unmatched in his generation", The Independent (2008-03-21)

• Privacy is not negotiable.
  • Dennis McLellan, "Obituary: Paul Scofield, 86; award- winning British actor", The Los Angeles Times (2008-03-21)

• I feel incredibly lucky to have discovered early in my life, practically when I was a child, that I could do something that in the end I finally wanted to do all my life. It has something to do with being completely removed from oneself, which doesn't necessarily mean one is uncomfortable inside oneself. It just means it's a great relief to be inhabiting somebody else. It can be a tremendously liberating sensation.
  • Dennis McLellan, "Obituary: Paul Scofield, 86; award-winning British actor," The Los Angeles Times (2008-03-21)

About Paul Scofield

• Beneath the gentle modesty of his behavior lay the absolute assurance of a born artist.
  • Peter Brook, Threads of Time: Recollections (Basic Books, 1998, ISBN 1582430187), p. 29

• He brought you face to face with the unfathomable. No actor summoned with such authority the mysterious depths of human experience.
  • Nicholas Hytner, "In quotes: Tributes to Paul Scofield", BBC News (2008-03-20)

• The only great actor I have worked with who was not in any sense a star — there was no great publicity about him, no scandal about him, none of the attitude to stardom.
  • Corin Redgrave, "In quotes: Tributes to Paul Scofield," BBC News (2008-03-20)

External links

• "Paul Scofield: The Times obituary", The Times Online (2008-03-21)