QUICKFIRE Simon Callow on splashing out on party clothes and a face that doesn t quite fit - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Celebrity QUICKFIRE Simon Callow on splashing out on party clothes and a face that doesn t quite fit By You Magazine - November 25, 2018 Actor Simon Callow on splashing out on party clothes and a face that doesn’t quite fit. Getty Images Where is home? Part of a large Edwardian house in Highgate, North London. Who would play you in a movie of your life? Twenty years ago I would have said Robert Downey Jr, who had the energy and wildness to play the young me. As a child you wanted to be… A barrister, a diplomat, a television celebrity – I wanted to be David Frost. Secret to a happy relationship? Absolute trust – a glib thing to say, but a difficult thing to achieve. Your best quality? Positive energy. And your worst? A tendency to disengage when I feel that things aren’t working. Last meal on earth? Something Italian and very simple, such as a bowl of spaghetti with a little olive oil. Dream dinner-party guests? The people I’ve written books about – Orson Welles, Charles Laughton, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and Richard Wagner. What do you see when you look in the mirror? I’m always surprised by my face and rather dismayed by it. I’ve never felt it properly reflects who I am. Big break? Playing the part of Mozart in the world premiere of Amadeus at the National Theatre in 1979 with Paul Scofield and Felicity Kendal. Career highlight? Directing Maggie Smith in The Infernal Machine by Jean Cocteau. Favourite tipple? Gosset champagne, margaritas and Côte-Rôtie red wine. Hangover cure? I never get hangovers, although I often have too much to drink. Where would you time travel to? Elizabethan England when English theatre was being invented. First record you bought? An album with Vaughan Williams’s ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ and Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’. Most extravagant purchase? When I was about to turn 30 and work had dried up, I spent the last money I had hiring a tail suit to go to a friend’s very glamorous birthday party. Best present you ever received? A big Collins dictionary from my mother. Biggest fear? I’m very claustrophobic. Celebrity crush? The opera singer Dame Janet Baker. Earlier this year I had the pleasure of interviewing her at the Wigmore Hall as part of her 85th birthday celebrations. Happiness is… Feeling absolutely alive. Simon’s one-man show of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol is at the Arts Theatre, London, from 8 December to 12 January and in cinemas nationwide on 11 December. See artstheatrewestend.co.uk and cinemalive.com RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR 50 of the best celebrity Halloween costumes of all time Shirley Ballas ‘ Strictly gave me back my hope’ Davina McCall discusses how men can help women going through the menopause Popular in Celebrity TV chef Gino D Acampo on Sardinia Sophia Loren and scary salads May 25, 2017 The Evergreen Goddess Exercise guru Diana Moran on looking fit and July 10, 2017 More more Julianne Moore November 13, 2017 Author Jill Mansell on designer notebooks commissioning art and the family January 16, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES Kelly Hoppen on vodka vintage finds and being a April 4, 2018 ‘ I have no regrets’ Millie Mackintosh on divorce debt and reuniting May 20, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES TV presenter and tennis player Annabel Croft shares her July 1, 2018 Stella Parton ‘ Dolly and I have always been close’ August 12, 2018 Anna Friel on getting jeered in the street shared parenting with September 23, 2018 Queen of primetime Charlotte Riley on juggling rising stardom with pregnancy October 21, 2018 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. All Rights Reserved