John Gielgud on Claude Rains
"Whatever instrument we have or whatever our instrument becomes—we have constructed it. By what we have done and by what we have thought."
Marian Seldes and Irene Worth persuaded John Gielgud to speak to me, by telephone, beginning in 1991. Gielgud did not feel he could offer anything on the subject of Tennessee Williams, but Marian told him I wanted to know about acting and directing. “Let him ask you anything,” she told him. “He will not disappoint you.” “I am afraid I might disappoint him,” Gielgud told her.
I finally got on the phone with John Gielgud. The first question I asked him was one Marian had given me. What did you learn from Claude Rains?
Here is his response.
Well, you may know that Marian often asked me to speak to her students [at Juilliard] and I always declined. I am a very, very poor speaker, and when people ask me about acting, I simply have no idea what to offer. I think everything I’ve done as an actor has been different, and I don’t see the value of sharing anecdotes of past productions. I do feel comfortable talking or writing about people with whom I’ve worked, and that’s what I tend to do if I’m forced to talk to anyone. I am happy to share with you what I feel about Claude Rains.
Claude Rains was my teacher [at RADA] and beyond all that he was immediately and sensually—handsome, charismatic—what really moved and altered me was his approach to the texts we studied, and which I would continue to study. Claude had an almost religious admiration for the great works, and he not only studied them, but he memorized them, and he exhorted me to do the same. The great words—of plays, poems, novels—should rest within the very fiber of our being. I know Marian told you about our time working together when she was very young, and we were together for Crime and Punishment, which was not a success. By which I mean that people did not choose to attend our production. I thought it was a success in what it taught us all. It taught me a great deal. It was very meaningful to Lillian Gish. Marian told me that it was the experience that taught her how very noble the art of acting is. She says I taught her that. She calls me a prince of the theatre. I am moved by that, but I was only passing on—emulating—what Claude Rains taught me. Showed me. I felt so fortunate every day working with Theodore Komisarjevsky, who was extraordinary. I learned so much from him. Every day was a gift. I could not regret a moment of that experience, no matter how often I am reminded that it was not the success we had thought it deserved to be. That play had worth in it, but I was taught to honor all things on which actors gather together to do. There is dignity and honor whenever we gather together to do our work. Marian says that theatre is her religion. I suppose it is mine as well. I do believe that when actors are committed to doing all that they can and must to elevate a play, and to then present it to an audience that wants and needs this same elevation—well, I think that’s sacred.
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Irene Worth talks about the cave drawings that exist in so many parts of the world. Irene is very adamant about the holiness of these drawings, the earliest examples of man sharing his experience and sharing his means of expression. We need to tell our stories. Earliest man was compelled to find a way to state that he had lived, he had seen things, and here is the record he had to share. Claude Rains taught me to feel this way about acting, about the theatre, about film. If we judge our work—if we say, well Shakespeare or Shaw is deserving of respect, but this film is not—we degrade the work and ourselves. Whatever instrument we have or whatever our instrument becomes—we have constructed it. By what we have done and by what we have thought.