Mem'ry Trevor Nunn More Quotes by Trevor Nunn More Quotes From Trevor Nunn If you're a director, your entire livelihood and your entire creativity is based on your self-confidence. Sometimes that's dangerously close to arrogance. Trevor Nunn self-confidencecreativityarrogance I always believe it's better to have 30 imaginations working on a project, rather than one imagination telling the other 29 what to do. Trevor Nunn planningimaginationbelieve Soundbite and slogan, strapline and headline, at every turn we meet hyperbole. The soaring inflation of the English language is more urgently in need of control than the economic variety. Trevor Nunn economiclanguageneeds The film director, in many instances, has to swallow somebody else's decision about the final form of something. It's so hard as to be intolerable. Trevor Nunn decisionghoulsdirectors In my teens, I developed a passionate idolatry for a teacher of English literature. I wanted to do something that he would approve of more, so I thought I should be some sort of a scholar. Trevor Nunn teenspassionateteacher I've never had any feeling of disconnection between the classical theater, or the contemporary theater, or musical theater, or the thing that we call opera. Trevor Nunn operamusicalfeelings I tend to arrive in the rehearsal process with very strongly developed ideas about what I want to do. But I don't like those ideas to be things that are not subject to change, or subject to development, or subject to challenge. Trevor Nunn developmentchallengesideas Peter Hall was just organizing the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was going to be an ensemble, it was going to be in repertory, it was going to have a home in London as well as in the Midlands, and all of those things were happening at that time. Trevor Nunn ensemblelondonhome The first big break was winning a scholarship to go to Cambridge University. I was very lucky, because my parents couldn't have afforded a university education for me. Without a scholarship I couldn't possibly have gone. Trevor Nunn cambridge-universityparentwinning The thing that I had saved up for myself and wanted most to bring off was a fully fledged professional production of Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford. Trevor Nunn royaltheaterwanted What you're doing is putting into professional play the way that you relate to other people, the way that you analyze and relate to a written text, the way that you would persuade anybody to do anything. It has to do with listening, with humility and a sense of yourself. Trevor Nunn humilityplaypeople When I was 13 years old, a professional theater company in my town needed a kid actor. I auditioned, and I got the part, so for just a few weeks I became a member of the company and I met some professional actors. Trevor Nunn actorskidsyears When I was at Stratford, the very first thing that I was commissioned to work on was trying to make a musical out of the documentary material about the General Strike, which was the next big historical event in England, after the First World War. Trevor Nunn musicalhistoricalwar In a way, I have to have a dictatorship. I can't be told that I'm wrong. That conflicts with what I was saying earlier about listening. It isn't to do with receiving criticism and responding to other views, it's who has that last decision. Trevor Nunn decisionviewslistening So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before. Trevor Nunn careersplaysong One fine day I discovered that more complex plays really have to be directed. Trevor Nunn complexesfineplay In the commercial theater, I've been pretty fortunate. The producers that I've worked with have allowed me to define the artistic integrity, the artistic limits of the work. Trevor Nunn artisticlimitsintegrity I've experienced a private doubt, something that I've kept deeply inside, and then eventually delivered a piece of work that people responded to with huge enthusiasm. Trevor Nunn piecesdoubtpeople I've just taken the decision that I'm going to now go full time back into the theater. Trevor Nunn theatertakendecision If you can't fully believe in your ideas, it very quickly communicates to a group of actors who need something to hold onto. They need to believe that whatever criticism, whatever comment is received, is meant. Trevor Nunn criticismbelieveideas
