The video features an in-depth conversation focusing on the illustrious acting career of Derek Jacoby. It highlights his extensive experience on stage and screen, covering his esteemed roles in productions like "Gladiators," "Nanny McPhee," and "I, Claudius." The conversation touches upon his early acting aspirations, his extensive work in Shakespearean plays, and the influences profound stage roles had on his career. The discussion also delves into personal insights, acknowledging how despite his reputation as a classical actor, Jacoby's journey was fueled by both recognized talent and fortunate timing.

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. storied [ˈstɔːrɪd] - (adj.) - Having an interesting and successful history. - Synonyms: (celebrated, illustrious, renowned)

Derek, you've had one of the most storied careers in acting.

2. resonated [ˈrɛzəˌneɪtɪd] - (v.) - To evoke or suggest emotions, often deeply or significantly. - Synonyms: (echo, evoke, remind)

Was there something about inhabiting people from the past that particularly appealed to you, resonated with you?

3. ubiquitous [juːˈbɪkwɪtəs] - (adj.) - Seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent. - Synonyms: (widespread, omnipresent, pervasive)

Do you think if you had been born in Leytonstone 30, 40 years later, when TV and movies were so much more ubiquitous, you may not have gone into theatre originally?

4. disparage [dɪˈspærɪdʒ] - (v.) - To speak of in a slighting or disrespectful way; belittle. - Synonyms: (belittle, criticize, denigrate)

Not that we want to disparage accountants.

5. anecdote [ˈænɪkˌdoʊt] - (n.) - A short, amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. - Synonyms: (story, tale, narrative)

And I adored school, I adored university, and I adored theater.

6. chuffed [tʃʌft] - (adj.) - Very pleased or happy. - Synonyms: (pleased, delighted, satisfied)

So they were very chuffed, very proud.

7. evacuee [ɪˌvækjʊˈiː] - (n.) - A person evacuated from a place of danger to a safer place. - Synonyms: (refugee, displaced person, escapee)

I was an evacuee as a very young child in the Second World War.

8. immersed [ɪˈmɜrst] - (v.) - To involve oneself deeply in a particular activity or interest. - Synonyms: (engage, absorb, submerge)

And it was the giving of an act. I can't act on my own. I need somebody to act to, to hopefully have an impact on your life as an audience.

9. persecuted [ˈpɜːrsɪˌkjuːtɪd] - (v.) - Subjected to hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of beliefs. - Synonyms: (oppressed, victimized, mistreated)

Gay people were persecuted.

10. charmed [tʃɑrmd] - (adj.) - Blessed with good fortune or luck. - Synonyms: (lucky, blessed, fortunate)

I have had a charmed life in all respects.

Actor Derek Jacobi on Shakespeare, luck, and coming out in the 1950s - BBC News

You're going to be an actor. You've got to earn a living, son. You know, you could become an insurance broker. Absolutely. An accountant. An accountant. Oh, well, that would have been the ace. Not that we want to disparage accountants. I'm sure there's very, very fine accountants.

Derek, you've had one of the most storied careers in acting. Baftas, Tony Oliviers, Emmys. You've been in the Gladiators, Nanny McPhee, I. Claudius, of course. Are you satisfied? You look back and think, I'm, I'm good. I've. I've done well. I have been the luckiest actor you will ever meet. I'm going to talk about that later with you because I don't think it is all luck, but anyway.

Well, I've been around for over 60 years and I've been given so many opportunities, you know, and I. And I still enjoy it. I said, I don't think I can do much stage work anymore. That's become a bit scary for me. The memory, tricky. The lies, tricky, tricky. The memory and the exposure. And with the camera, I can stop. I can forget and stop and we can do it again. There are no safety nets in the theatre. It's you and hopefully a couple of thousand of them, hopefully in a big theater. And that was always a thrill. That was always. Get up there and really enjoy it. The thrill is now turned into terror. Yeah, terror's not a good thing. Not a good thing. Not a good thing. But you're still doing. You were just in Gladiator 2. Yes.

You've done a lot of historical roles, obviously. I mean, obviously Shakespeare, emperors, Claudius. Was there something about inhabiting people from the past that particularly appealed to you, resonated with you? I think it happened because I. I did a lot of the classic roles, and in that sense, you. You get to play kings, princes, emperors. And I did a lot of Shakespeare. And I. Right from school days, I played Hamlet at school when I was 17. And that kind of. I always thought that I was. I wanted to be an actor. I had no talent for anything, El. And Hamlet confirmed it. Okay.

Is there a line from Hamlet that particularly today, you even remember? Oh, I used to be able to remember all of it. To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows about rage's fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. That's a bit of. It's still there. It's still there. All These years later, all the other parts, I think, are gone. Hamlet's still around.

Shakespeare stays. Shakespeare stays. Yeah. Was there a way you approached your Shakespeare roles? I mean, you did take on these great classics and you went into it very much with a mind of doing theater. Would you say you always were going to be a classical actor in the role? Does that mean something, being a classical? Because you. You. Yes. I'm always wondering whether you kind of became Derek Jacoby is the classical Shakespearean actor of our generation. Is that. Is that something you intended to.

That never occurred. That never occurred, no. You know, actors are players to kind of make an actor special. If making it put marks by an actor and. No, no, no, no, no. Actors should be universal. There was nothing in my background that was special. I was an East End boy, you know, I was never called Blimey. But that was my surroundings, you know. But I somehow. I was born to be an actor. That's what I feel. There was never any alternative.

That's what I wanted. That's what I thought I could do. That's what I enjoyed. And it was the giving of an act. I can't act on my own. I need somebody to act, too, to hopefully have an impact on your life as an audience. That is thrilling. That is thrilling. Do you think if you had been born in Leytonstone 30, 40 years later, when TV and movies were so much more ubiquitous, you may not have gone into theatre originally, or was it something about theatre and live performance?

I think it was. I was very fortunate in that I was born in London, so theater was easily available. My parents first took me to theater when I was about seven, the pantomime at the London Palladium. The wonderful thing was I was an only child, but they were so supportive. But it was a world that they wanted not of. They knew nothing about theater actors. And they had this son who was reasonably clever at school, reasonably academic, ended up going to university and all that. So they were very chuffed, very proud.

Not just any University, Cambridge, at St John's what do you think they expected for you? What did they think young Derek was going to become? They never. They never mentioned it. They never. I thought when I went into the theater, which was a world they had no knowledge of at all, acting, making an actor. But it all changed when I got my first job, which was the Birmingham Rep, and I stayed there for three years and they would come up from London to see everything I did.

They would drive up to Birmingham and they suddenly kind of switched, you know, they thought well, he's enjoying himself. He's earning a living. What's wrong with that? You know, people, they seem to like him, they respond to him. Our son's an actor, you know, and they were so supported, you know, because it was a world that was alien to them. I'd had a good education, I'd been to university. And in their heads, the world is your oyster. You're going to be an actor. There's no steadiness in acting.

You've got to earn a living sum. You know, we could become an insurance broker. Absolutely. An accountant. An accountant. Oh, well, that would have been the ace. Yes. But you're going to go up to Birmingham. Not that we want to disparage accountants. I'm sure there's very, very fine accountants. Of course not, but it wasn't my scene at all. How did it affect you becoming famous? I don't think it affected me at all, really. Fame is really how you use it. And if fame meant more work, fame was good.

But that's sort of what it meant to me. Of course, there's a little tingle when somebody says, oh, Mr. Jacoby, I saw you in this Canadian autograph, of course. Oh, yes. But that's all. You know. I don't think an actor being an actor inflated me in any way, really, because I knew how difficult it was and how easy it was to muck it up. Do you think there's a difference between being an actor who has primarily come from theater and the classics and the stage? And I look at young actors, I mean, stars are made in the space of one movie performance and they may not have had very much experience beforehand.

Yeah. What do you think those stars could have made it in your world of night after night and three years at the Birmingham Rep? Is it. Is there a difference? And do you look at the quality of the acting? So, I don't know, maybe look at the quality of their acting, think, my God, they're good. Or maybe you look at it sometimes and think, oh, my God. Yeah, both of those. Pretty face. Yeah, both of those, yeah. Oh, God, he's handsome. Oh, okay. He can hardly speak, but he's good looking.

No, you're actually. You go through a period of, let's call it jealousy, but it doesn't stay because you know what a hard world it is and an unforgiving world it is in many senses. And a pretty face, a handsome face isn't enough, ultimately, is not enough. You have to come up with. Not that you don't have a very handsome face. Derek I don't for a minute be implying that, but did you go when. I mean, I'm thinking of those young actors, I mean, who are pretty faces and maybe they'll just disappear and you.

And you. I love the fact that you use the word jealousy because of course, we all have some of that jealousy. Did you think when you were in your 20s and 30s, I could be one of those pretty face actors too? Was that your view of yourself? Did you think of yourself as a kind of handsome, romantic lead? No, no. And the proof is in the pudding. I wasn't that kind of lead actor. I'm not saying that they're no good. And in a sense they have a head start because they're nice to look at.

And I was lucky in that at the age of 17, got my first job at the Rep. I stayed three years, which I hadn't been to drama school, so it was a huge learning experience. A new play every four weeks for three years, and then being spotted by Lawrence Olivier, taken to the National Theater at the Old Vic when I was 20 and staying there for seven years. I mean, that was an experience that actors were kill for working with Olivier, Red Grape, Matty Smith, Albert Finney, Bob Stevens, you know, greats, all the greats and learning from them and becoming friends with them.

And part of that company was amazing. So that's why. Okay, so this is the reason I was asking about how you looked and how you saw yourself as kind of physically as an actor was because you have spoken a lot about luck. You've written about luck in your life. But actually, I look at your life and there are some ways in which you could say this was not a lucky actor. You have struggled. You were not the pretty face that automatically got you into the Hollywood movies. You were gay at a time when it was illegal to be gay.

You had things you had to overcome. And in a way, yes, Laurence Olivier spotted you at the Birmingham Rep, but he spotted you because you were damn good. Was that luck, really? I mean, yeah, it was in the fact that he was in the audience that he. He was on, apparently on a. A trip around the reps in the country. Right. To find the company that he wanted to create at the. The ov. To play the. The. The supporting actors. And thank God he picked me and I became.

But I'm supporting. But maybe you'd have become you. Somebody would have spotted you anyway. Don't know. With that much talent, does that much talent go unnoticed? I think there's talent and I think there's luck. And without that luck, the talent isn't enough on its own. You've got to have the opportunity to show you've got talent. And without that opportunity, you can be as talented as all get out.

But nobody's seeing it, nobody's appreciating it. You've got to be seen. Your gift has got to be acknowledged or whatever. I'm still not convinced. I still think somebody. You were too good, Derek. I, I, if he hadn't been in the audience that night, somebody else would have been in the audience or somebody would have told him how good you were. I don't believe that. I don't believe it. I, I think once you start believing in your own talent rather than welcoming the fact that you are talented, I think that's wrong.

Interesting. Don't believe. Oh, God, I'm so good at this. No, thank God I've been given the opportunity to do this and thereby maybe get better. But it's a lovely world to be in and I want to be successful in that world. I don't particularly want to be rich, although that will be nice. But it is a world that I feel absolutely at ease in. And if that's going to be my life, what a wonderful life it's going to be.

How much of a struggle was it being gay at a time when it was illegal and widely condemned? Yes, I didn't struggle. No, I was lucky. I've been so lucky. I have been. Luck, luck, luck. My, I was always as a boy, I knew that something was, it's wrong to say something was wrong. Something was different. And I didn't acknowledge it for a long time. As a teenager, I had the girlfriends and, But I knew, I knew something was. And you knew what it was. It was different. I knew exactly what it was.

I once confronted my mother with the fact and told her. And you were quite young. Yes, I was a young teenage, you know, I was about 16, I suppose. And I said, mom, I want to talk to you. And I told her. And her reaction, God bless her, was, you're 16. All boys go through this. You'll grow out of it. That that was, in a, in a sense, her defense, you know, against what she didn't want. And obviously, well, this was the 1950s. Yes. Yeah. She went off to Dad, I expect, and then he talked about it, but it was never mentioned again. Never mentioned again.

And they accepted it. You know, they totally accepted. Was a time when it, it was difficult. It was because the gay people were persecuted. I didn't put it around that I Was gay, you know, I was very discreet. I suppose I was determined not to let it appear in my head as a disease, as something wrong with me. I think you're an amazing optimist. I think you're very optimistic. I was very. I've said it so many times talking to you. I was so lucky.

Oh, God. I. I didn't really ever face big problems or big obstacles. I was lucky. You're still acting. Thank God. Even at the grand old age of. Young. Age 87. 87. This is my 87th year. Yeah. What does age bring to an actor? Well, things drop off. Yeah. And you slow down. It's more difficult to remember lines. Your brain. I used to have a very sharp brain. I don't anymore. I think that, obviously, is age. Physically. You get aches and pains.

I haven't, thank goodness, got anything really dangerous. I can't see very well out of my right eye, but that's all. I can still walk, talk. Shall I tell you this only recently. Only in the last. I would say 18 months. But I have a lady who I can hear in my ear, who feeds me my lines. Now I know my lines. I've studied the part and I know how to. But in case I dry. Which at the age of 87 is much more likely, she's in my ear and I can take her cues and speak the lines.

I don't know whether I should have told you that. But I am not the only one. I think I'm very grateful to that lady because it keeps you giving your gift to us for longer. Well, that's a lovely thing to say, but in a way, in my head, it's a default, you know, it's. I mean, that I'm not totally in charge. I need assistance. It's like a skier wearing a knee brace. Yeah. Yes. Keeps them skiing longer. Yes. Yes, That's a very good analogy. Yes, that's true.

Is there other upsides of aging that you bring to your roles or life or is that I'm very. I have a wonderful partner who, in a sense, I mean, lately, has become a looker afterer too. And for which I am deeply grateful. But I can't complain about anything. My life. I really had a charmed life, really, from being an evacuee as a very young child in the Second World War.

In the Second World War, I was. When war broke out, I was about 4, 3, 4. And I was evacuated. Had a wonderful time. I was vacuuming to the country, to a pub. I had a year and a half in a pub. I wasn't drinking in those days, but I had a wonderful time. And then I adored school, I adored university, and I adored theater. Sort of. Nothing went wrong. I've had a couple of physical accidents which I thank God survived.

But if anyone could say they have had a charmed life, and if I don't fall off this chair dead for saying it, I have had a charmed life in all respects. I am in my middle years. I found a partner with whom I've been for nearly 50 years. Yes. I can't complain about anything. Derek, thank you very much. Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. That was lovely. Was it all right? Lovely. Sam Sa.

ACTING, THEATRE, SHAKESPEARE, INSPIRATION, EDUCATION, MOTIVATION, BBC NEWS