I didn't follow people to find out what they were going to do, to snoop, but purely to see what window they would stop at, and, primarily, observe the way they walked. I would then imitate their walk. There were old ladies, old men, all sorts of people. I began to feel that if I got into their stride, I'd begin to be in the kind of mood they were in, and, beyond mood, know something of their nature. I think one of the tragedies about advancing age for an actor is that his power of observation decreases.
Young people observe more sharply, more instinctively.
I certainly did. In my formative years, I used to observe, not very generously, but very sharply. I would observe snidely, cruelly, but with enormous precision. Now I have to make a very big effort to deliberately observe, so that things stay in my memory. My whole feeling about acting is that you must observe, absorb, and forget.