Actors on Actors Who Act Shakespeare Criterion Collection Laurence Olivier in the 1948 film version of "Hamlet." Shakespeare fans have no qualms about debating which Hamlet or Lady Macbeth was better than the rest. Last week Charles Isherwood asked: What makes a master Shakespearean actor? This week readers weighed in with their picks for the best Shakespearean performance they'd ever seen or heard. Now it's time to hear from actors themselves. Following is a sampling of excerpts from interviews and published memoirs by Shakespeare wizards, in which they talk about the performances that rocked their world. Christopher Plummer on Zoe Caldwell (From his memoir "In Spite of Myself"): "Zoe Caldwell's unforgettable performance [opposite him in "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Stratford Festival in 1967] was never seen beyond the border. If there is any tragedy attached to the play, that was it...[T]o me, her most beguiling and inspired gift to the theater was Egypt's Queen. It is sad that the rest of the world has been deprived of that glory, but the heavens surely witnessed it and so did I. As I flew down to New York, I could not keep from my ears, as I still can't to this day, the keening wail that came from somewhere deep within her as she held my dead body in her arms and rocked me back and forth ... I would have gladly died many times over each night just to let those words and this great artist who spoke them wring my heart. Ralph Fiennes on Laurence Olivier (From screenwize.com): What really made Shakespeare get inside my head was when my mother told me - in her own words and in a very simplified and accessible way - the story of Hamlet when I was about eight or nine. That story really affected me and I badgered her with questions about it so much that she put on an old record of Laurence Olivier doing speeches from his film version of Hamlet. I was completely transfixed by the sound of that extraordinary voice, taking me through those words - even though I didn't understand all the words. It mesmerised me with its power and rhythm, and there was something in it that was seductive. Judi Dench on John Gielgud (From her memoir "And Furthermore"): I have always said to students if you really want to know how to speak Shakespeare, Sir John (Gielgud) and Frank Sinatra will teach you. Because one used to present the whole arc of a speech, and the other presented the whole arc of a song, without any intrusive extreme emphasis. When I saw John Gielgud's one-man Shakespeare recital "Ages of Man" in New York I was absolutely bewitched by it." Frank Langella on John Gielgud (From his memoir "Dropped Names"): As a teenager, I had worshipped John Gielgud's voice and manner and his clear, precise, intelligent delivery of Shakespeare. So much so that I locked myself in the attic of my family house in New Jersey and listened to him deliver Clarence's speech from "Richard III" dozens of times on the recording of the 1955 Laurence Olivier film in order to eliminate the Joisey in me. It was, in fact, my delivery of that speech that got me into the Lincoln Center Training Program, among thirty other aspiring actors, headed up by Elia Kazan in 1962 as preparation for that company's first season. Kenneth Branagh on Derek Jacobi (From his memoir "Beginning"): There was a new production playing at the theater in Oxford; I asked Jayne Thurgood, a girlfriend whom I was trying to impress, and we took the train from Reading. I was completely bowled over and and so was my companion, which was a relief - it was not the most obvious evening's entertainment for a young suburban couple. It seemed unbelieveably dramatic, dark and rich to look at, full of exciting lighting effects. The production had tremendous pace, and the acting was passionate and electric. I cheered at the end as he came on. I'd read all about him; Cambridge, Birmingham Rep, understudying at the National Theater, taking over from Jeremy Brett, Cassio in Olivier's "Othello," Ivanov for Prospect, and now here he was, live - a completely thrilling Hamlet. I was watching Derek Jacobi. Thanks to Georgianna Ziegler at the Folger Shakespeare Library for research.