A biography for Simon Callowhasn’t been written yet.
“There is something essentially sanguine about me, which I am inclined to attribute to the fact that I was born by caesarean section. It must affect you.”
“I don't have any big regrets.”
“Like many Catholics, I was very affected by the personality of Jesus and that impression, pious as it was, has stayed with me.”
“I love storytelling and I love just relating directly to an audience. That's why we do theatre, it's because we love contact with the audience. We love the fact that the audience will change us. The way the audience responds makes us change our performance.”
“I am never bored, never short of anything to do and I don't even ever feel lonely. I am quite gregarious and I get out and about a lot, but sometimes it is just wonderful to be on your own.”
“When children have grieving parents it's also common for them to feel an obligation to cheer them up and make them happy.”
“My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She had this vision of me walking across the quadrangle in an Oxford college wearing my academic gown.”
“To enter a theatre for a performance is to be inducted into a magical space, to be ushered into the sacred arena of the imagination.”
“When the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back as a feature film a few years ago, one national newspaper ran a poll to ask its readers who should be the new Doctor, and I topped it.”
“Bleak House is just the most astounding piece of work. There's huge, visionary poetry in it.”
“Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.”
“He invented this idea of telling the life story of a great writer through becoming his characters and becoming him. It was such a pleasure and I thought we must find another writer.”
“I'd like to direct more operas.”
“Having caught a glimpse of what I might be able to do with my talent, I feel a tremendous obligation to try to fulfill it.”