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“Eventually in December my call came and I did eight days work completing all my scenes.  Then in January I received a charming letter from H.G. beginning with some very flattering references to my performance in the ‘Man Who Worked Miracles’ and going on to say that when he had first devised ‘Things to Come’ he had visualised my part as an El Greco but that he had made a mistake - the artist ought not to be the sensitive type as he had first seen him, but a more robust person - more of a Benvenuto Cellini and that the part was now going to be played by someone else. ‘You never liked the part anyhow,’ he added, with a few more consolatory remarks about my ‘artistry which was not in doubt.’  So after drawing a comfortable salary for six months, I had nothing to show for it.  People envied me for earning money so easily, but I would always much rather be working, even at a smaller salary than is earned on the films than disappear from view as completely as I did that summer.”

Ernest Thesiger, from his unpublished memoir, I Was