YouSaid · the spoken record

Simon Russell Beale

lines on the record: 34
first: 2007-07-08
most recent: 2007-07-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio 4.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, all right And if I was to force you to save just one record, which one would it be? Simon Russellbill, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Part of the final movement of Ravel's rhapsody espagnol performed by the royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn. So now we give you, as you will know, Simon, we give you the Bible Shakespeare I don't know if you'll even need it. It might already be all in there already and one other book what would it be?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wonder if you might have projects, though, if you might because you are so used to being busy, and because it seems to be ingrained in your very DNA, would you be really...”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How would you handle island life then if you like your own company and you've always lived alone? Do you think you'd be fine with it?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're perfectly straightforward about your homosexuality. Would you like to be in a long term relationship? Would you like that when you close the theatre door and open the door to your home, there's somebody waiting?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The fifth movement Pieron Leer from Peter Warlock's Lacriel Site played by Peter Lawson and Allen McLean looking down the list of your credits over the last fifteen years. I mean, we've mentioned a fair bit of the Shakespeare. Also, there's been a lot of contemporary work too. Do you feel exhausted by it? It looks like an exhausting amount of work to churn out”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The other route that a lot of actors Your caliber venture down, of course, is directing, because you have to, as you've said, you have to. understands the text and you love to be in control. It would seem for somebody like you to be quite an obvious thing to do, but you haven't.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, when you did stray into it was television, it was dance to the music of time that was very well received. You won awards for it, you won, was it a BAFTA, you won for your performance there. Were you tempted to flirt? Did your agent try to convince you that out there was at the end of the television rainbow or the film rainbow was a great big pot of gold and you could go and pick it up?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Greedy for the parts then, but not greedy for the cash. I mean, there's a whole lot more money to be made, isn't there? If you go to...”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Joshua Bell playing part of the first movement of Sibelius' violin concerto in D minor. Some of the names people like Rafines and Tilda Swinton from your university days. We have combined very credible stage acting careers with big careers in the movies and indeed also in TV. You've chosen not to do that. You have had success in television, but you've chosen not really to work in front of the camera. Why is that?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She did, of course, know that you, by that stage, were a hugely respected and well known stage actor. Did she take a great deal of pride in that? Did she talk to you about it much?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you were rehearsing it at a time when you had recently lost your own mother. Inevitably it must have, I'm sure, have been involved in part of the character you developed”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Part of the first movement of Beethoven's fourth symphony performed by the orchestra revolutionaire Emontique conducted by Sir John Elliot Gardner. So Simon Russell Bele, when you're faced with alas, poor Yorick, or to be or not to be, I mean, that is a mountain to climb in order to try to actually make it sound as if it's freshly minted. I mean, it's one of the things that is said often about UN reviews, that the great skill you have is that you make it appear as though not only are there your words, but the thought is simply just occurring to you at that moment. How do you even begin that?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when you were, is it true that when you were rehearsing Iago, you had to actually stop for a moment and take some time away from rehearsal because you find it so thoroughly unrelentingly horrible as a character to address.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and he saw something anew, he took, he took the casting in terms of you as an actor to places where people before would not have considered you.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The reason I say you do yourself down is everyone who's listening might not have read all the reviews I've read. I have never read reviews of an actor that are as unremittingly glowing as the ones I've read of you, which is why I want to put it in context for people when I say you're doing yourself. And I want to ask you about Sam Mendez At what point in your career did you meet him?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when you did join the company, did you have an idea that you wanted to nail down the biggies? Did you give yourself a sort of window seat by this time? I will have done Hamlet. I will.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of the first movement of Mendelssohn's octet in E flat performed by members of the Academy of St. Martin in the fields, you were at the Guildhall School of Music, which of course is the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Did you look at the drama? Luckily, yes. Did you look at the drama students and think?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It sounds again like a very quite a serious time. I mean you seem to me somebody who fizzes with quite a lot of sort of humour and maybe even impishness, and yet here you were studying, doing the music, following a disciplined life at a time at university when a lot of people are having a lot of fun and the studying comes in.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The opening of Marlow's eighth symphony performed by the chorus of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Boys Choir with the Vienna Singers, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Shulty, to Cambridge then, Sam Russellbill, where you studied English, and among your contemporaries at the time people like Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie. Were you part of that set?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, you've convinced me And where was all of the acting? Because early on, as you've described it, there was a teacher who said this could be the real deal. This person could go and act. Were you acting at the same time or studying literature, keeping up the Shakespeare?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that the problem really is being middling, you couldn't stand the probably could have made a rather middling career as a professional singer or a professional musician, but it wouldn't have been top drawer.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You rewarded a music scholarship to study at Clifton College. So one imagines that you imagined your life, your professional life beyond lay music?”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cambridge singers led by John Rutter and a spotless rose. Let's talk about music then because clearly you have a huge enthusiasm for music. We've heard that from the first two choices and from the way that you've introduced them, but it held a central role in your life. You were schooled in what piano and oboe.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This block at the end of the cathedral in the middle of London, and four two hours a day you were a professional singer, I suppose. And I think that had some sort of effect on the way. The rest of the work was done, and it's astonishingly, I mean, I don't remember having to learn to sightsee, for instance. So you go in there as a very, very young man.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do you know that? I yes, I wrote I said it must be all of you who knew her so much better than I did which mum kept. in a way when it was true. I mean, I'd grown up. Nonetheless, particularly well because I only met her during the holidays. What was it that she was ill? A hole in the heart. I'm not a medic, so unlike the rest of the family, so I don't know what the official description of it, but I was told a hole in the heart. So you were at St. Paul's Cathedral School in the choir, obviously a very able voice. And do you think partly that's how your studiousness was developed? Because there must have been quite a strong routine through the day there. Yes, it was a very strict school. It's a very disciplined school and a very small school. There's only thirty-eight kids.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“when I was just about to turn eight, and the whole rest of them lucky things went off to Singapore. Why are you on your own? Well, because they had got into the choir school, and mum and dad obviously thought that was the best place for me to be educated, and in fact the twins, my two younger brothers, followed a year later coming to school in England, so that was obviously the plan. And brothers and sisters, quite a few brothers and sisters. Three brothers and a sister, yeah. And you had a sister who died when she was very young. She died, yes, Lucy, she died when she was four. When I was still at the choir school, actually I remember that I was eleven. And you wrote rather heartbreaking notes back to your parents when she died.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And writing essays at school, I remember my brothers used to tease me about it. If I made a mistake on the last word of a page, then the whole page had to be rewritten, all that sort of rather. So by nature a perfectionist obsessive stuff, yes, not perfectionist. So this studious little boy from the age of seven was schooled in England whilst your family were living abroad. What was the situation? Well, yes, it's rather extraordinary looking back on it now. It didn't seem extraordinary at the time, but I was left with my grandparents in Newport and South Wales”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“breakfast music Ark Spanderberg Concerto number one and played by a group who wildly early music and the horns are great. Opening of Bach's Brandenburg Conto one performed by the Concerto Italiano conducted by Ronaldo Alessandrini, Simon Russellbill, you've said several times, I believe, that you feel that you're almost born middle aged. What do you mean by it? Yeah, I don't know whether my brothers and sister would think I was serious. I think what I meant by it is that I've always taken work very seriously and I think I'm a bit of a plodder in terms of everything has to be.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And also, and I've said this many times about directors, is that they've got a pour confidence into you. And I think I need that, to be honest. It seems a significant contradiction that somebody who is able to put themselves out live on stage every night in front of hundreds of people with high expectations at the same time lacks confidence. That doesn't quite make sense. I think that's an absolute classic actor's thing of low self-esteem and huge ego. So low self-esteem plus huge evil equals actor. That's a terrible act of friends will kill me for saying that. But I think it's not an easy route to find out why somebody actually appears on stage live. But it's not entirely to do with... Sometimes to do with the exact opposite somehow. Tell me about your first piece of music. I had to have a bit of Bach, and this is sort of early morning.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“that he said to my parents when they came round for a chat to see what I was going to do for Alevel, What about a career in the theatre? I remember that very clearly. We were on the steps of his house, and he, as his parting shot, he said. Probably the theatre, and that took me by surprise. I mentioned in the introduction that you seem to like from what I can understand you seem to like the collaboration, you like being pushed on by a director that you have confidence in. Sam Mendes is somebody that you've worked and had great success with. Yes, I mean, I... spent most of my life in the two major theatre companies in this country, and I love it because it is a community, but I also love it because it is I think I probably need a lot of stimulus at the beginning of any process.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think he had forgive me for saying that. I met him when I went to a senior school when I was thirteen, and he cast Miss Desdemona. and started the whole thing of start the whole thing about Shakespeare, but he got me to fall in love with Shakespeare. How did you look as Desdemona? Oh, I ghastly, I should think. Unwatchable. I think there was a review in the school paper that said he. makes up in clarity what he lacks in feminine charm or something. I can't remember what it was, but something like that. And he realised then that that was where your future lay. Did he sort of spot the talent from the very beginning? But as I said, he wasn't a great fan of professional theatre, so It was a bit of a surprise when I did my O levels as they were in those days.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hello, Uncle Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive for rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast in two thousand seven. My castaway this week is the actor Simon Russell Beale. Critics are torn over their descriptions of him. To some he is the greatest stage actor in Britain today, to others merely the greatest Shakespearean actor of his generation, whichever it is, when he's cast in a play, it invariably sells out, the audience is spellbound, and the reviewers smitten. Yet it initially seemed as if music was his calling. A choir boy at St. Paul's, he won a singing scholarship to Cambridge, and went on to study at the Guild Hall School of Music. A collaborator by nature he seems happiest when pushed to new heights by others who are already confident of his talents, Sam Mendes is his great stage mentor. So Simon Rossobil initially was an English teacher who spotted your talent for relaxing. What happened? Brian Worthington, who was a great teacher and a very strict teacher and a very puritanical intellect, and in fact not a great lover of the theatre, actually a professional theatre.”
2007-07-08 · Desert Island Discs · Simon Russell Beale · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source