Simon McBurney
Simon McBurney
Simon Montagu McBurney, OBE is an English actor, writer and director. He is the founder and artistic director of the Théâtre de Complicité, London. He has had roles in the films The Manchurian Candidate, Friends with Money, The Golden Compass, The Duchess, Robin Hood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Magic in the Moonlight, The Theory of Everything and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth25 August 1957
experience intensity interested provides suppose
I suppose I'm really interested in theatre that provides an intensity of experience on another level.
break broken building burned climb interested looking majority remember rule school spent ticking time top trying
I spent the majority of time at school trying to break the rules. I would climb to the top of buildings; I even burned a building down once - not intentionally, just because I was interested in fire. I remember going through the rule book, ticking off the ones I had broken and looking for the ones I hadn't.
britain call french interested mean people says visual
In France, they call the people who come to the theatre 'les spectateurs'; in Britain and Ireland, they are the audience, the people who listen. This does not mean the French are not interested in language. On the contrary. It actually says more about the undeveloped visual sense over here.
amount cooked food gave looked mother realised smell
When my mother was dying, I cooked for her. One of the things I realised was that the smell and look of the food was key. I concentrated on how it looked on the plate. Even if the amount was small, it gave her a nourishment of a different kind.
close death people purely various
I've had various people close to me die, and I don't necessarily find the idea of death purely depressing.
music musical passionate
I'm passionate about music, and I feel that theatre has an extraordinarily musical ability in the way it operates on the audience.
bad kid mathematics worked
I was very bad at mathematics in school, and I always had the feeling as a kid that when I worked on problems, that I would be wrong.
I was keen to stage 'Faust,' although I find Goethe's 'Faust' indigestible.
brought felt home
I have always felt more at home in a culture that has nothing to do with the one I was born and brought up in.
streets
I feel that if you can play on the streets or in a comedy club, then in a theatre it's a doddle because you've got an audience.
assume cast people tend
I don't tend to get cast in the theatre much. People assume I come with all this baggage. But they do cast me in films. In films, I'm a nobody.
I constantly want to know - what is a table, or what is a cat?
For years, I wasn't in the least bit interested in opera.
art relationship science
For some years, I've been very interested in the relationship between science and art.