SIZEMORE RECITED SHAKESPEARE TO STAY SANE IN PRISON
TOM SIZEMORE used his acting skills to help him cope with prison - he wou ld recite Shakespearean plays to pass the time in his cell.
The Saving Private Ryan actor was jailed for 17 months in 2005 after fa iling drug tests while on probation for assaulting his then girlfriend, H ollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, two years earlier (03).
And Sizemore reveals he endured life behind bars by focusing on his lov e of The Bard - writing down excerpts from his favourite plays and reciti ng them to keep his "brain working".
He tells U.S. newsman Larry King, "I didn’t do drugs in prison. I focus ed on not losing myself. There wasn’t a lot of fighting. I had to fight a few times and I can handle myself. I’ll take a beating, I don’t care.
"But in prison, it’s different. Taking a beating could be your last bea ting. I know Shakespeare a lot. I know it well. I remember full plays alm ost. I’ve (a) really great memory. I wrote down as many of the plays I’ve been in that I can remember the lines that I had and other characters I had. I wrote down the movies I had been in.
"I wrote them out to make sure my brain was still working and to keep m yself - I have a good imagination, I could disappear into (acting)… Whe n I played Iago (in Othello), I still know what I did when I was 21." (MJ
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