UD: But isn't theater more traditionally concerned with language whereas film, traditionally, is more about images?

BK: I think the cinema you like has more to do with silence, and the theater you like has more to do with language. And that's fine, that's your taste. It may well be mine . . . the astonishing silences in a Tarkovsky film that can sweep you into screen and that you don't want to end, and how is the man managing to sustain it for longer and longer and longer. But at the same time, I find it thrilling to listen to two people playing with language like John Travolta and Samuel Jackson talking about hamburgers [in Pulp Fiction]. I mean, that's a scene about language. And when the cinema does do scenes about language, it's wonderful to be in that room listening to how these people talk. I think cinema can celebrate language as well as use silence as a great device.

UD: And talking about silence, you've played Pinter, which is very much about silence, but you've played him on film, not on stage. What about filling out those silences?

BK: I think the camera can do it very eloquently. In Turtle Diary which is a film I love because of the way John Irving used the camera in those silences, you have a man, in silence, with the faintest bit of jazz music in the background, looking out the window, and you can see his reflection and you can see a London tube train clattering across the tracks, right across his eyes. And that silence is utterly articulate about loneliness in a city, loneliness amongst so many other people and so many other lives. Of course, silence in the theater, when you know that that silence is being sustained before your eyes by a group of actors on stage can be equally thrilling. I think we undervalue silence as a very powerful currency. I think we're frightened of it right now. We fill it at the least provocation.

UD: Your were in the historic 1970 Brook Dream. What was that like?

BK: It was absolutely exhausting! Because Peter made us justify with every fiber of our being every move and every word and every gesture. He made it so urgent that those four lovers communicated their love, that it became a life and death issue. And it does. We know it does amongst young people. If your best friend has stolen your girlfriend, it does become life and death. So Peter made every issue a question of burning urgency, then set it in a white box which filled the theater with light and made the characters stand out as if they were hurling themselves into the auditorium. It had tremendous energy, the text has never been clearer and better spoken. (laughing) Some people thought that he had changed the words. But not a syllable of that text was changed. And some people thought how can you do Shakespeare in such a modern way? When in fact, we probably got closer to the original version than anyone has ever gone. That is what it must have been like to see that play for the first time.

UD: Were you all aware that you were making history?

BK: No, we weren't aware. Honestly, we were aware that we had a tremendously hard job to do every night. And that if we hit the collective nerve of the audience on that night, that they would be standing up and rushing towards the stage to hug us. But if we missed it, then we would have a lesser response. We were aiming at a white purity, emotionally and physically, that would be as close as possible to the audience hallucinating for two and a half hours in the theater. Tripping, really. "Trip away, make no stay." Actually, that's the line: "Trip away, make no stay. Meet me all by break of day."

UD: Why did you want to become an actor?

BK: To be seen and heard.

UD: Thank you Mr. Kingsley.