Anthony Andrews made his West End theater debut at the Apollo Theatre as one of twenty young schoolboys in Alan Bennett's "Forty Years On" with John Gielgud. He began his career at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the UK. His theater credits include spells with the New Shakespeare Company - "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The...
Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
Star Sign
Capricorn
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Quote
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...Never lose courage. Tomorrow is another day. Life is littered with obstacles, but the secret is not caring about what is going wrong; concentrate on getting enough courage, and protecting your self-esteem, until tomorrow. - 15 April 2003, Times Online
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I'm very good at deciding what should be done, but pretty hopeless at doing it. - 15 April 2003, Times Online
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What upsets me most is miscarriages in the legal system and seeing people suffering. When I was filming in Russia at the end of the Gorbachev era I saw peasants doff their caps to film company limos because they thought that there were government officials inside. The same thing happened in Mexico. Any regime that does that to its people upsets me. - 15 April 2003, Times Online
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My greatest fear is losing touch with God. I am in constant dialogue with Him. My grandfather was a priest and I served at the altar as a little boy. I have a long history of being on the cusp of Catholicism. I pray a lot, especially when those fogs of life descend. It helps me to keep a positive attitude in a negative world. - 15 April 2003, Times Online
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I cope with disappointment by not allowing it to show. I learned how to disguise my feelings at my Dickensian school where I got beaten to a pulp regularly. I pretended that it had not changed me one iota. - 15 April 2003, Times Online
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The Scarlet Pimpernel was such a temptation. I defy any actor not to want to play the Pimpernel if it's offered to him! It was tremendous fun playing someone of dual character with all those disguises.
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[on similarities between himself and his character in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), Sir Percy Blakeney] - I've been accused of hiding behind faces and disguises.
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[on Ava Gardner] One of the most generous and warmhearted of people.
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Then there was school. I wasn't a great success: I was shy, not particularly clever, and dyslexic. But thanks to an English master called Quibble-Smith, who gave me a part in a Greek tragedy, I realised that I enjoyed getting into character - I could express myself better through a character than I could as myself. The part was Athena, and I had three pages of speech to deliver, which was quite a daunting prospect. It was an open-air performance, and the speech was to be given from the top of the cloisters. I wore a ghastly Roman helmet, a shield and a spear and was bedecked in blue silk skirts topped off with a long, blond, curly wig. As I stood up to speak, the wind caught my skirts and raised them above my eyebrows. I spent the entire speech battling with billowing silk and revealing everything underneath. It didn't dampen the desire to perform, though.
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It was such a fabulous role that I can't be at all surprised, let alone upset, that people still mention it. We were very lucky to have 13 episodes in which to dramatize Evelyn Waugh's novel, and one reason for the series' impact is a combination of time, money and producing talent that was unique. I think it's fair to say that you'll never again have that length of time (we shot it over nearly two years) or that sort of budget to shoot a television series about one book. "Sebastian" was the part I wanted to play, having read the book, and though I was initially seen for the part of "Charles Ryder" - which Jeremy Irons played in the end - it was "Sebastian" that I was after, and luckily I got him! AA, regarding his role in Brideshead Revisited (1981).
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Fact
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He has appeared in two different productions in which the Edward VIII abdication crisis of 1936 formed a major part of the storyline. He played King Edward VIII (the Duke of Windsor) in The Woman He Loved (1988) and the then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in The King's Speech (2010).
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Due to acute water intoxication, in 2003 he fell unconscious and spent three days in intensive care. He was playing the role of Henry Higgins in a revival of My Fair Lady, and consumed as much as 2 gallons of water a day.
He has portrayed both Edward VIII and his younger brother and successor George VI. He played the former in The Woman He Loved (1988) and the latter in Cambridge Spies (2003).
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Has a small production company, Double A.
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Made his stage debut at the age of eight, playing the White Rabbit in a production of "Alice in Wonderland".
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Mentored actress Romy Park whilst she was in drama school in England.
$6 Million
