Period Drama Quotes & Sayings

I've never seen myself as a documentary filmmaker. I see myself as a filmmaker, period, and I am interested in drama as well as in documentary. — Errol Morris

I want to do theatre and I want to do period drama. — Lauren Socha

Put me in a costume, and I'm your man. I must have one of those faces which seems to suit period drama more than modern films and TV programmes. But I'm not complaining, I love going back in time. I feel quite lucky because nobody knows who I am. I can walk about and have ordinary conversations with people. — Hans Matheson

Because I had grown up with Jane Austen novels and period dramas, I was very familiar with that period and that world. — Gugu Mbatha-Raw

It is difficult to know how the Tudors actually spoke because we're going back before Shakespeare; much of the drama from that period is courtly, allegorical. — Hilary Mantel

Nothing is forever, and I do still talk about when I'll come back to Britain. I'd love to come back and do a nice big juicy period drama. I don't understand it when people suddenly turn their back on Britain or Scotland. I'm so aware of it, and it's so much a part of who I am. — Ashley Jensen

I think comedy is drama, often. It's hard to have comedy over a period of time - commercials are one thing, but over a period of time - comedy and tragedy go hand in hand. — Gore Verbinski

I think that period dramas just need zombies. — Lily James

One of the things the BBC does better than anyone is period drama. — David Oyelowo

I like playing the social convention. If you're in a period drama, there's always something dancing underneath the surface as a human - but then you always have to conform to the social conventions around you, and those two things get to be juxtaposed against each other. You're being human, but you're trapped within the social convention of the time. — Jenna Coleman

I remain, however, fairly optimistic for the future of period drama because it's just such a popular thing. — Andrew Davies

I would love to do a serious period drama. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you'll find most comedians want to do more serious stuff, most musicians want to be comedians, and most serious actors want to be musicians. — Amy Poehler

I think some period drama can be quite alienating, but 'Downton' isn't. This is going to sound quite, um, pretentious, but someone said that it's like a soap written by a poet. — Michelle Dockery

Our political solar system, in short, has been characterized not by two equally competing suns, but by a sun and a moon. It is within the majority party that the issues of any particular period arc fought out; while the minority party shines in reflected radiance of the beat thus generated .... Each time one majority sun sets and a new sun arises, the drama of American politics is transformed. Figuratively and literally a new political era begins. For each new majority party brings its own orbit of conflict, its own peculiar rhythm of ethnic antagonisms, its own economic equilibrium, its own sectional balance. — Samuel Lubell

In my last year of drama school, I was Abigail in 'The Crucible' and Nina in 'The Seagull,' and I did some Shakespeare with the RSC. That's what casting directors saw me in, and I got put up for a lot of period drama auditions. I always get told I suit the costumes. I don't think I have a very modern-looking face. — Kimberley Nixon

If someone said, "Would you like to do the period drama?," I'd say, "Hell, yeah! I'd love to do that!" To dig into history and do a story in some period would be great. — Steve Pink

Making this movie as a period piece about a period that was very recent in people's minds. I was in Taiwan [during the 1970s], so I hope I did all right. Otherwise, it could be the biggest embarrassment of my life. Also, the story is not linear, it's patchy, like a cubist painting, and there is always the possibility it will not hold together, it will fall apart. The tone is part satire, part serious drama, part tragedy, all mixed together, and it has to hit an emotional core. That's also very scary. — Ang Lee

What a moment to take the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other and watch the unfolding of the great drama of the ages. This is an exciting and thrilling time to be alive. I would not want to live in any other period. — Billy Graham

What you have to understand about period drama is that it's 'history light.' — Julian Fellowes

I had the training at drama school where I studied Shakespeare and Brecht and Chekov and all these period historical playwrights and I think that I responded to the material. — Orlando Bloom

The BBC is very good at period drama - world-famous for getting the details right. — Lynne Reid Banks

I'd like to try different genres: comedy, period drama, rom-com, action. — Nina Dobrev

The lyrics to the single 'Survivor' are Destiny's Child's story, because we've been through a lot, ... We went through our drama with the members ... Any complications we've had in our 10-year period of time have made us closer and tighter and better. — Beyonce Knowles

I have plenty of dream roles because there is so much I want to do, but my dream year would be to be in a single-camera comedy and then, on my hiatus, film a little low-budget indie drama. That would be a dream 12-month period. A dream role depends on having good material and working with people that I can learn from. — Katie Featherston

You will free yourself from emotional drama by uncovering all the lies you believe in. It is a process of unlearning the lies. It is a period of cleansing, and it has nothing to do with the dream of society. — Miguel Angel Ruiz

I went to college to study drama where I discovered I had no talent and after a period of dropping out majored in cultural anthropology which of course meant more masks and dancing ... I studied what interested me and so I had to become a writer because my education had left me unsuited for a decent well-paying job. — Elizabeth Hand

I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either. — Rebecca Hall

I don't believe in making movies to cater to a foreign audience. You never know what the reaction is going to be anyhow. At the time I made Maborosi, the Japanese movies getting any foreign attention were all period dramas and seemed to be about some representative element of Japanese life, and my movie was contemporary movie about one specific woman trying to understand her husband's suicide. — Hirokazu Koreeda

- Ay! Thornton o' Marlborough Mill, as we call him.
- He is one of the masters you are striving with, is he not? what sort of master is he?
- Did yo' ever see a bulldog? Set a bulldog on hindlegs, and dress him up in coat and breeches, and yo'n just getten John Thornton. — Elizabeth Gaskell

When I heard that 'Dracula' was being made into a series by NBC and Carnival, I couldn't resist. I knew they would do something interesting with it. A period drama with a supernatural twist seemed like a whole lot of fun. — Jessica De Gouw

As soon as I see period costume, I turn off. It's like hearing drama on Radio 4. — Steve Coogan

I'm English and I'm used to coming from a world of period dramas, where there's a very polite restraint to everything. Everybody's sort of sitting in drawing rooms. — Clive Owen

She often felt like she had been cast in a supporting
role with the film that was Louise. And there was more melodrama to be found there than a full-scale Merchant-Ivory period production. Tonight, she was certain, would be no exception. — Kerri Thomson

You don't automatically assume everyone will fall for a period drama. — Jessica Brown Findlay

As a writer I'm committed to exploring what I call "The invisible things" - the things that people aren't talking about. I think that's where the juiciest conversations and the juiciest drama lives. My goal with the series is to get people talking about and reflecting on how issues of race play out in their own lives. Since I've spent a fair amount of time watching time travel shows and movies where the leads are White (and can blend in really easily no matter the time period) I thought I would turn that on its head and see what might happen. — Steven C. Harper

'The Tudors' was ground-breaking in the sense that it did ruffle the feathers of classical historians and alter the way people did period drama at the time. — Annabelle Wallis

I'd love to be in a period drama, though my dream role is to be in a film with Ray Winstone and Tom Hardy. — Lauren Socha

I haven't ever seen a period drama that has a fantasy element to it, that's set in London, that's as lavish as it is, and that's made for American TV. — Oliver Jackson-Cohen

I like period drama because everyone is so restrained, but they have all these emotions raging underneath. — Jenna-Louise Coleman

I love costume dramas, I love performing in them, because in a funny kind of way, you feel more free. You know about the period, you can read the books, you can see the paintings, but you've never actually going to know what it was like. You can kind of stretch those boundaries a bit. — Keira Knightley

I'd love to be in a period drama - that's my obsession. But being a mixed-race actress, there aren't so many roles you're right for. — Antonia Thomas

I've got four piercings in my left, so we've dubbed my right one the 'period drama ear.' I have to be filmed from that side when I do emotional close-ups in 'Downton.' — Jessica Brown Findlay

Young man, the truth is what you create. — Richard Finney

Everyone loves a slice of period-drama-pie, but I think the success of 'Upstairs Downstairs' is really down to the wonderful format that Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins created. — Ellie Kendrick

None of us had any idea of how successful Downton was going to be. I thought I was signing up for another period drama that had a slightly modern feel. It had a freedom about it because it was coming out of the head of Julian Fellowes. Anything could happen and generally did. — Dan Stevens

Winston Churchill wrote afterwards: 'No part of the Great War compares in interest with its opening. The measured, silent drawing together of gigantic forces, the uncertainty of their movements and positions, the number of unknown and unknowable facts made the first collision a drama never surpassed. Nor was there any other period in the War when the general battle was waged on so great a scale, when the slaughter was so swift or the stakes so high. Moreover, in the beginning, our faculties of wonder, horror, or excitement had not been cauterized and deadened by the furnace fires of years. — Max Hastings

Like Keats he may wander through the old-world forests of Latmos, or stand like Morris on the galley's deck with the Viking when king and galley have long since passed away. But the drama is the meeting-place of art and life; it deals, as Mazzini said, not merely with man, but with social man, with man in his relation to God and to Humanity. It is the product of a period of great national united energy; it is impossible without a noble public, and belongs to such ages as the age of Elizabeth in London and of Pericles at Athens; it is part of such lofty moral and spiritual ardour as came to Greek after the defeat of the Persian fleet, and to Englishman after the wreck of the Armada of Spain. — Oscar Wilde

What you don't get necessarily at drama school is a gigantic mix of people. At university, there's people from every social background, and you get to go through that period of being naive and not quite sure who you're going to be. — Tom Riley

Each form of the acting is different. I think it keeps your mind active. TV, film and theater are different disciplines, as are independent films, opposed to studio films. There are differences in the size and the genre, or a period drama as opposed to a contemporary drama, or the types of characters. — Luke Evans

Most period drama is so earnest. A lot of it is about making yourself take seriously things you wouldn't normally. — Joe Thomas

I would love to do a sweeping romantic period drama, like Jane Eyre. That would be my dream. It's always been my dream, as far as acting. — Chloe Sevigny

I've done a lot of costume drama and theatre - the National Theatre and In fact, most of my work at the theatre, at the National Theatre anyway, was period. — Brenda Blethyn

LIFE IS AN ENTHUSIASM. MY EXPERIENCE OF LIFE, MY VISION ALL ARE MENTION IN MY BOOKS. WRITING LANGUAGE - MALAYALAM. I BORN AND BROUGHT UP IN KERALA. MY LIFE PERIOD MORE THAN 28 YEARS WORKING IN THE MIDDLE EAST. IN MY LIFE EXPERIENCE INVOLVED IN MY ALL LITERARY WORKS - POEMS, DRAMA, NOVELS, TRAVELOGUES, SHORT STORIES & SCREENPLAY. — Saravan Maheswer

All those prayers said back in high school, the teenager I was having sex without protection, my period late, tears taking the place of breath, moments of high drama, saying, Please God Please God let me not be pregnant let my period come so I can finish high school oh please just this once and I will start showing up on time and doing my homework if you just this once have mercy God O God take pity and let my period come. Sitting on the edge of my bed, crying into my hands, so certain of my ability to bear children that everything in me played with it like fire, then prayed for its prevention. It's possible that I repeated it once too often, my anti-pregnancy chant, and the words seeped into the fabric of my body, making it into a shield. — Sonja Livingston