The Entertainer

Peter O'Toole tells Charlie Rose how he came to want to be an actor

He had no desire to be an actor until he was 20, and then it hit him hard

I saw Richard [Burton] onstage. I saw him play Hamlet, I saw him play Toby Belch, this is day after day after day, Caliban in the Tempest, the Bastard in King John

CR Where was this?
O'T the Old Vic
CR the Old Vic, so it was in London
O'T in London

I was absolutely knocked out. I was knocked out by the entire company, excellent people throughout

I then went to a cinema
I was in a sailor suit, I was in bell bottoms
I went to a cinema in Curzon Street, and playing in that cinema was a film called Rashomon

CR Yes, a great
O'T and I saw Toshiro Mifune
CR Yes
O'T with such energy
and and and so compact
and I thought I'd love to be able to do that
and those two things, that's the beginning of me wanting to do it



[I was feeling very low when I started to watch this. I can't begin to say what it meant, hearing O'Toole talk of going to a cinema, waiting for the name of the film -- and it was Rashomon. With Toshiro Mifune.]