Michael Ball

Actor

1962-06-27

Quotes by Michael Ball

• The biggest myth I'd like to bust isn't about me - it's about musicals. So many people dismiss the entire art form through highbrow snobbery, but I think a lot of those people would be suprised if they actually saw some.

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• Legally we have integration, social acceptance and diversity... but that doesn't mean... everybody is down with it.

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• As a person, Stephen Sondheim is a very funny, very dry and very shy man. I've never witnessed any diva-ish moments, he just always seems so thrilled people are doing his work.

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• That's the only show where, if anyone says to me, 'Is there a role you want to play?', I say, yeah, I want to play Sweeney Todd. Stephen Sondheim's so clever; it's a profoundly brilliant piece of work.

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• The one I really get on with is Princess Anne. Talk about calls a spade a shovel! And she's so clued-up. She's a patron of a number of charities. I've been involved in a couple and she's not just a name. She knows the research programmes that are going on. She really does her homework.

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• I'm a fairly traditional British cook, as my partner Cathy doesn't enjoy spicy food, although I like to experiment myself.

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• When you're on stage and the stars are aligned and the audience is as one and you're guiding them, steering them... It's a feeling of incredible potency, of unity, of such, such joy. It's almost overwhelming to know that you're making that number of people feel better.

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• I don't have hobbies. Other than watching telly and walking my dogs, what I do is work. That's who I am.

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• Musicals aren't two-dimensional froth.

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• As a performer, once you've understood the genre of musical theatre, you can tire very quickly of the two-dimensional stuff. With Sondheim, it's always a challenge. It's difficult and exhilarating and he's so good on the complexities of relationships and on things going wrong.

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• The first time I encountered Stephen Sondheim was like everyone else: through snatches of old songs people performed in drama school, through 'Send in the Clowns,' which everyone knew. I wasn't aware at the time that he was the writing force behind 'West Side Story' and 'Gypsy.'

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