Stage Beauty (2004)

Claire Danes: Maria Hughes

Photos 

Quotes 

• Maria : Your old tutor did you a great disservice, Mr. Kynaston. He taught you how to speak, and swoon, and toss your head but he never taught you how to suffer like a woman, or love like a woman. He trapped a man in a woman's form and left you there to die! I always hated you as Desdemona. You never fought! You just died, beautifully. No woman would die like that, no matter how much she loved him. A woman would fight!

• Ned Kynaston : Do you know the Five Positions of Feminine Subjugation?

  Maria : What?

  Ned Kynaston : The Five Positions of Feminine Subjugation. No? Perhaps you're more acquainted with the Pose of Tragic Acceptance. Or the Demeanor of Awe and Terror.

  Maria : Mr. Kynaston.

  Ned Kynaston : How about the Supplicant's Clasp or the Attitude of Prostrate Grief?

  Maria : Mr. Kynaston.

  Ned Kynaston : Funny, you've seen be perform them a thousand times. I'd have thought they'd taken hold.

  Maria : Mr. Kynaston!

  Ned Kynaston : Ah, well now, there's a feminine gesture. You seem to have managed the Stamp of Girlish Petulance.

  Maria : I just wanted to act. I just wanted to do what you do.

  Ned Kynaston : I have worked half my life to do what I do. Fourteen boys crammed in a cellar... Do you know when I was in training for this profession, I was not permitted to wear a woman's dress for three long years, I was not permitted to wear a wig for four - not until I had proved that I had eliminated every masculine gesture, every masculine intonation from my very being. What teacher did you learn from? What cellar was your home?

  Maria : I had no teacher, nor such a classroom. But then, I had less need of training.

• Maria : Mr Kynaston, I can explain everything.

  Ned Kynaston : Why, are you a philosopher?

• [last lines] 

  Maria : So, who are you now?

  Ned Kynaston : I don't know.

  [smiles] 

  Ned Kynaston : I don't know.

• Maria : You almost killed me!

  Ned Kynaston : I did kill you, you just didn't die.

• Maria : What do you know of love, sir? Or loyalty? Or adoration suffered in deepest silence? The only love you know, sir, is what you act on stage.

• Maria : Why won't you play men?

  Ned Kynaston : Men aren't beautiful. What they do isn't beautiful either. Women do everything beautifully, especially when they die. Men feel far too much. *Feeling* ruins the effect. Feeling makes it ugly.

  [Maria rolls her eyes] 

  Ned Kynaston : Perhaps that's why I could never pull off the death scene. I- could never feel it in a way that wouldn't mar the-

  [pause] 

  Ned Kynaston : I couldn't let the beauty die. Without beauty there's nothing. Who could love that?

• Maria : I am an actress, not a beauty.

• Sir Charles Sedley : So, Kynaston, will you see Mrs Hughes perform?

  Maria : Yes, I'd love to know what you think of the death scene.

  Ned Kynaston : Oh, I'm always interested in how my rivals die.

  Sir Charles Sedley : [to the Duke of Buckingham]  Your Grace?

  George Villiars, Duke of Buckingham : Well, no. I've had my fill of Desdemonas.

  George Villiars, Duke of Buckingham : [later]  I'm off as well. Kynaston... shall I drop you?

  Ned Kynaston : Yes, I need my sleep.

• Female Emilia : What cry is that? Sweet mistress, speak. Who hath done this deed?

  Maria : Nobody. I myself. Farewell. Commend me to my kind lord. Farewell.

  [Dies] 

  Ned Kynaston : Why? How should she be murdered?

• Ned Kynaston : Why does one act?

  Maria : When you act, you are seen.

• Maria : Mr. Pepys - who do you write all those little notes for?

  Samuel Pepys : For myself, alone.

  Maria : Do you enjoy it?

  Samuel Pepys : I love it. Don't you love acting?

  Maria : [hesitates]  Yes... But unfortunately, I cannot do it for myself alone, for I fear in truth I am terrible at it.

• [Ned is showing Maria different sexual positions; Ned is on his stomach underneath her] 

  Maria : So, am I the man or the woman?

  Ned Kynaston : You're the man.

  Maria : And you're the woman.

  Ned Kynaston : Yes.

  Maria : Isn't much to do.

  Ned Kynaston : Not with what we're given.

• [Ned is showing Maria different sexual positions; Maria is now on her stomach underneath him] 

  Maria : So, who am I now?

  Ned Kynaston : You're the man.

  [laughs] 

  Ned Kynaston : Uh, you're the woman.

  Maria : [giggles]  And you're?

  Ned Kynaston : I'm the man, or so I assume. Seldom get up here, quite a view.

  Maria : But I'm the man-woman.

  Ned Kynaston : Yes, you're the man-woman.