Being an Actor

"The most honest book written about us all." —Sir Ian McKellan

Few actors have ever been more eloquent, more honest, or more entertaining about their life and their profession than Simon Callow, one of the finest actors of his time and increasingly one of the most admired writers about the theater.

Beginning with the letter to Laurence Olivier that produced his first theatrical job to his triumph as Mozart in the original production of Amadeus, Callow's Being an Actor takes us with him on his progress through England's rich and demanding theater: his training at London's famed Drama Centre, his grim and glorious apprenticeship in the provincial theater, his breakthrough at the Joint Stock Company, and then success at Olivier's National Theatre are among the way stations.

Callow provides a guide not only to the actor's profession but also to the intricacies of his art, from unemployment—"the primeval slime from which all actors emerge and to which, inevitably, they return"—to the last night of a long run.

"Impassioned, intelligent, informative, and quite simply one of the best theatre books I have read." — The Financial Times (London)

"Pugnaciously candid . . . His book is a unique account of an actor's life." — The Guardian