In Their Own Words

You have to be alive to the changes, and prepared to compromise in some way, I think. And I always have thought the theatre is really a great compromise. I mean, in every production, you have to compromise in some way: you never get the absolutely perfect cast. You've got to compromise with the author, with the director, with the lighting man; the whole thing is a compromise, and it's a kind of miracle when it comes together, like good cooking. And if it happens to be that you have the right ingredients, and they all come to the boil at the right moment, you have a success. But it is an extraordinary profession, in that way. I think there's more luck in it, more hazard, perhaps, than any of the other artistic professions.

Sir John Gielgud, British Actor, 1904-2000