The first category is young and talented -- a very good category to be in. The second is experienced and successful, a pretty good category to be in, you've got work and had experience. The third, a category you all want to be in when you start out, it's called distinguished and acclaimed. Once you get to be distinguished and acclaimed the pressures are so much greater. You suddenly become the favorite in the race. People expect you to be good because you're distinguished and acclaimed, so your powers of surprise are lessened. You are expected to win the race.  
                                      Sir Derek Jacobi 1996

Stephen Sondheim wrote me a fan letter. He came to see the show in London. I don't know and never met him. I got his letter saying "I've been over in London...I'm just about to go back to New York. But last night I saw your play and before I go back to New York I have to tell you that I've always considered acting to be an interpretive art, but there are occasions, I will admit, where the thin line between interpretation and creation is crossed....and I saw you cross it last night." Which was wonderful. And the other thing was that somebody, a photographer, was coming to do some stills for "Breaking the Code", and so they gave him a ticket for the show the night before so that he'd seen the show and so he could do the set-ups he wanted. At one point he was doing a solo of me and he said, "I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I feel a little embarrassed. You are the only  actor I've ever seen on stage who appears to be in a state of grace."                          
 Sir Derek Jacobi 1989

with Anna Friel

I'm very typical of actors. Paradoxically there's a shyness as people, but acting is a way of getting over that shyness. Kean says, 'You don't act to earn a living. You act to lie. You act so as not to know yourself. You act because otherwise you'd go mad.' 'That's why I act. I act to be what I cannot be because I'm fed up with what I am. But they all apply. 

Sir Derek Jacobi 1991