Sir Michael Gambon, one of Ireland and England’s great actors, announced this weekend that he will have to retire from the stage, since he struggles to learn lines.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, the Harry Potter actor explains that he quickly forgets lines after he learns them. It’s a fact he’s sad to face, as he’s been acting on the stage for five decades.
“It’s a horrible thing to admit but I can’t do it. It breaks my heart,” he told the Times, reports The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s when the script’s in front of me and it takes forever to learn. It’s frightening.”
Gambon experimented with an earpiece, so someone could read him the lines from the wings of a theater, but he decided that it wasn’t going to work. “You can’t be in theater, free on stage shouting and screaming and running around, with someone reading you your lines,” the 74-year-old explained.
As The BBC notes, Gambon has struggled with his memory in the past. In 2009, he suffered panic attacks while trying to remember lines for a National Theatre production.
Gambon isn’t completely retiring though. He still hopes to take TV roles and appear in movies. In fact, he stars in the BBC and HBO adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. He starred as Dumbledore in six Harry Potter films.
image courtesy of Tim Whitby/INFevents.com