Stage Beauty Quotes

Stage Beauty is a TV program that debuted in 1970 . Stage Beauty completed its run in 1970.

It features Robert De Niro as producer, George Fenton in charge of musical score, and Andrew Dunn (cinematographer) as head of cinematography.

Stage Beauty is recorded in English and originally aired in United Kingdom. Each episode of Stage Beauty is 109 minutes long. Stage Beauty is distributed by Momentum Pictures (UK).

The cast includes: Edward Fox as Sir Edward Hyde, Claire Danes as Maria, Billy Crudup as Ned Kynaston, Richard Griffiths as Sir Charles Sedley, Hugh Bonneville as Samuel Pepys, Zoe Tapper as Nell Gwynn, and Tom Wilkinson as Thomas Betterton.

Stage Beauty Quotes

Billy Crudup as Ned Kynaston

• (Billy Crudup) "A critic is born."
• (Richard Griffiths) "And all because I thought you were a whore and grabbed your cock."

• (Billy Crudup) "Oh, mother, oh, mother, oh, what shall I do?/ I've married a man who's unable to screw./ My troubles are many my pleasures are small/ For I've married a man who has no balls at all."

• (Billy Crudup) "Do you know the Five Positions of Feminine Subjugation?"
• (Claire Danes) "What?"
• (Billy Crudup) "The Five Positions of Feminine Subjugation. No? Perhaps you're more acquainted with the Pose of Tragic Acceptance. Or the Demeanor of Awe and Terror."
• (Claire Danes) "Mr. Kynaston."
• (Billy Crudup) "How about the Supplicant's Clasp or the Attitude of Prostrate Grief?"
• (Claire Danes) "Mr. Kynaston."
• (Billy Crudup) "Funny, you've seen be perform them a thousand times. I'd have thought they'd taken hold."
• (Claire Danes) "Mr. Kynaston."
• (Billy Crudup) "Ah, well now, there's a feminine gesture. You seem to have managed the Stamp of Girlish Petulance."
• (Claire Danes) "I just wanted to act. I just wanted to do what you do."
• (Billy Crudup) "I have worked half my life to do what I do. Fourteen boys crammed in a cellar -- Do you know when I was in training for this profession, I was not permitted to wear a woman's dress for three long years, I was not permitted to wear a wig for four; not until I had proved that I had eliminated every masculine gesture, every masculine intonation from my very being. What teacher did you learn from? What cellar was your home?"
• (Claire Danes) "I had no teacher, nor such a classroom. But then, I had less need of training."

• (Billy Crudup) "I'm not teaching you how to be a woman. I'm teaching you how to be Desdemona."

• (George Villiars, Duke of Buckingham) "Yes. I never tire of Othello."
• (Billy Crudup) "Truth be told, sir, he never tires of Desdemona."

• (Billy Crudup) "Right, I'll need boot black."
• (Richard Griffiths) "I have boot black."
• (Billy Crudup) "With you?"
• (Richard Griffiths) "A scuff, sir, is a dreadful thing."

• (Billy Crudup) "Why does one act?"
• (Claire Danes) "When you act, you are seen."

• (Billy Crudup) "A woman playing a woman? Where's the trick in that?"

• (Billy Crudup) "I want to act."
• (King Charles II) "Then act."
• (Billy Crudup) "I want to act as I did before."
• (King Charles II) "You mean the girls' parts."
• (Billy Crudup) "If you will."
• (King Charles II) "I won't."

• (Billy Crudup) "Right -- In the saddle."

• (King Charles II) "Kynaston? How in hell did you get in here?"
• (Billy Crudup) "A former fellow actor is your undercook and has long been a dear friend to me."
• (King Charles II) "Then we'll have to execute him."
• (Edward Fox) "Ohhhh."
• (King Charles II) "A joke. A joke. Calm down, Kynaston."

• (King Charles II) "Act a man, Kynaston. How hard can it be?"
• (Billy Crudup) "It is not a question of acting a man. I can act a man. There's no artistry in that. There are things that I can be as a woman that I cannot be as a man."

• (Billy Crudup) "Did you go round after?"
• (George Villiars, Duke of Buckingham) "Oh, too crowded. Pepys went. If two mice were f***ing in a nutshell, he'd find room to squeeze in and write it down."

• (Billy Crudup) "Found a guardian at the gate, did you?"

• (Billy Crudup) "A part doesn't belong to an actor; an actor belongs to a part."

Claire Danes as Maria

• (Claire Danes) "What do you know of love, sir? Or loyalty? Or adoration suffered in deepest silence? The only love you know, sir, is what you act on stage."

• (Claire Danes) "Mr Kynaston, I can explain everything."
• (Billy Crudup) "Why, are you a philosopher?"

• (Claire Danes) "Mr. Pepys; who do you write all those little notes for?"
• (Hugh Bonneville) "For myself, alone."
• (Claire Danes) "Do you enjoy it?"
• (Hugh Bonneville) "I love it. Don't you love acting?"
• (Claire Danes) "Yes -- But unfortunately, I cannot do it for myself alone, for I fear in truth I am terrible at it."

• (Claire Danes) "Your old tutor did you a great disservice, Mr. Kynaston. He taught you how to speak, and swoon, and toss your head but he never taught you how to suffer like a woman, or love like a woman. He trapped a man in a woman's form and left you there to die. I always hated you as Desdemona. You never fought. You just died, beautifully. No woman would die like that, no matter how much she loved him. A woman would fight."

• (Claire Danes) "So, am I the man or the woman?"
• (Billy Crudup) "You're the man."
• (Claire Danes) "And you're the woman."
• (Billy Crudup) "Yes."
• (Claire Danes) "Isn't much to do."
• (Billy Crudup) "Not with what we're given."

• (Claire Danes) "So, who are you now?"
• (Billy Crudup) "I don't know."
• (Billy Crudup) "I don't know."

• (Female Emilia) "What cry is that? Sweet mistress, speak. Who hath done this deed?"
• (Claire Danes) "Nobody. I myself. Farewell. Commend me to my kind lord. Farewell."
• (Billy Crudup) "Why? How should she be murdered?"

• (Claire Danes) "Why won't you play men?"
• (Billy Crudup) "Men aren't beautiful. What they do isn't beautiful either. Women do everything beautifully, especially when they die. Men feel far too much. Feeling ruins the effect. Feeling makes it ugly."
• (Billy Crudup) "Perhaps that's why I could never pull off the death scene. I- could never feel it in a way that wouldn't mar the-"
• (Billy Crudup) "I couldn't let the beauty die. Without beauty there's nothing. Who could love that?"

• (Claire Danes) "You almost killed me."
• (Billy Crudup) "I did kill you, you just didn't die."

Hugh Bonneville as Samuel Pepys

• (Hugh Bonneville) "Forgive me. I have spoken loudly."

• (Hugh Bonneville) "You know, Mr. K, the performance of yours I always liked best? As much as I adored your Desdemona and your Juliet, I've always loved best your 'britches' parts. Rosalind, for instance. And not just because of the woman stuff but also because of the man sections. Your performance of the man stuff seemed so right, so true. I suppose I felt it was the most real in the play."
• (Billy Crudup) "You know why the man stuff seemed so real? Because I'm pretending. You see a man through the mirror of a woman through the mirror of a man. You take one of those reflecting glasses away it doesn't work. The man only works because you see him in contrast to the woman he is. If you saw him without the her he lives inside, he wouldn't seem a man at all."
• (Hugh Bonneville) "Yes. You've obviously thought longer on this question than I."

• (Hugh Bonneville) "Tell me about your parentage, Miss Gwynn."
• (Zoe Tapper) "My mum was a whore, my father was in the navy."
• (Hugh Bonneville) "I see."
• (Zoe Tapper) "That's why I don't never do sailors."

Richard Griffiths as Sir Charles Sedley

• (Richard Griffiths) "Obviously, I'm behind in my drinking."

Edward Fox as Sir Edward Hyde

• (King Charles II) "Why shouldn't we have women on stage? After all, the French have been doing it for years."
• (Edward Fox) "Whenever we're about to do something truly horrible, we always say that the French have been doing it for years."

Tom Wilkinson as Thomas Betterton

• (Tom Wilkinson) "I played the Moor."
• (Unnamed) "You look -- different."
• (Tom Wilkinson) "Yes -- I'm not really black."

Zoe Tapper as Nell Gwynn

• (Zoe Tapper) "A man isn't how he walks or how he speaks. It's what he does."

• (Zoe Tapper) "Charlie boy, where's his toy? Oh, your Majesty, let me see the crown."

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