Ben Kingsley Monologues

If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, you look around… this is where they're made.

It's all gone now. Everything I ever made. Nothing but ashes and fading strips of celluloid. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.

My friends, I address you all tonight as you truly are; wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, magicians… Come and dream with me.

I would recognize the sound of a movie projector anywhere.

Magic tricks and illusion became my speciality. The world of imagination. My beautiful wife was my muse, my star, and we couldn't have been happier. We thought it would never end. How could it?

But then the war came. And youth and hope were at an end. The world had no time for magic tricks and movie shows. The returning soldiers, having seen so much of reality, were bored by my films. Tastes had changed, but I had not changed with them. No one wanted my movies anymore. Eventually I... I couldn't pay the actors... or keep the business running, and... and so my enchanted castle fell to ruin. Everything was lost.

One night, in bitter despair, I... I burned all my old sets and costumes. I was forced to sell my movies to a company that melted them down into chemicals. These chemicals were used to make shoe heels. With the little money I had from selling my films, I bought the toy booth... and there I have remained. The only thing I couldn't bring myself to destroy was my beloved automaton. So I gave him to a museum, hoping he would find a home. But they never put him on display. And then the museum burned. It's all gone now. Everything I ever made. Nothing but ashes and fading strips of celluloid. My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies.

There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!

The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons.

What's wrong with this country, Marty? Money. You taught me that. Evil defense contractors had it, noble causes did not. Politicians are bought and sold like so much chattel. Our problems multiply. Pollution, crime, drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair; we throw gobs of money at them! The problems always get worse. Why is that? Because money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it.

There I was in prison. And one day I helped a couple of nice older gentlemen make some free telephone calls. They turned out to be, let us say, good family men.

I might even be able to crash the whole damn system. Destroy all records of ownership. Think of it, Marty: no more rich people, no more poor people, everybody's the same. Isn't that what we said we always wanted?

Martin Brice - my old and good friend who promised me we would not get in trouble and who, I might add, did not.

You will give me the box, right now, or I will kill you, right now.

Anyway, I couldn't have you talking to the Russians. Five years ago, yes, we could trust them not to go running to the F.B.I., or if they did we could trust the F.B.I. not to believe them, but today we can't trust anybody.

Who else is going to change the world, Marty? Greenpeace?

My father used to say: "The first time someone calls you a horse you punch him on the nose, the second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk but the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle."

The unlucky are nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky. You are unlucky, so I may know that I am not. Unfortunately the lucky never realizes they are lucky until it's too late. Take yourself for instance; yesterday you were better off than you are off today but it took today for you to realize it. But today has arrived and it's too late. You see? People are never happy with what they have. They want what they had, or what someone else has.

I don't. I'm a bad man who doesn't waste time wondering what could've been when I am what could've been and what could not have been. I live on both sides of the fence. My grass is always green. Consider, Mr. Fisher... there are two men sitting here before you, and one of them you should be very afraid of. Where's my money?

If there's one thing I know, is when someone is lying. A man in my position, that's all he has to go on. To know a lie when he hears it. It's the difference between life and death. Your own. Someone else's. That being said, he wasn't lying.

You're unlucky and nothing more than a frame of reference for the lucky Mr. Fisher. You're unlucky, so that I may know that I am not. Unfortunately, the lucky never realised they are lucky until its too late. Take yourself for instance, yesterday you were better off than you are today but it took today for you to realise it. But, today has arrived and it's too late. You see?