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
strong light theatre
Any fifth language that you use should be equally used as just another bit of theater language, so that if you have a strong text, then the light should be as strongly part of that text as, for example, the sound it should be or whatever it is that you see.
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.
experience intensity interested provides suppose
I suppose I'm really interested in theatre that provides an intensity of experience on another level.
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.
extension forgotten love natural seemed
As a child, acting just seemed like a natural extension of my love of play - and if you've forgotten how to play, you shouldn't be an actor.