Faith & Spirit Quote by Ben Kingsley

London class isn’t described here as merely unfair or old-fashioned; Kingsley tags it as devotional. Calling it “like a religion” is a sly, actorly diagnosis: class isn’t just a system you live under, it’s a belief you perform. You learn the liturgy (accent, wardrobe, taste), you absorb the taboos (who belongs where, who speaks when), and you’re rewarded for correct ritual. That metaphor does more than exaggerate. It explains why class can survive reforms, money, even meritocratic rhetoric: faith doesn’t need evidence, it needs repetition.

Kingsley’s specific intent feels twofold. First, he’s puncturing the romantic export of “London” as cosmopolitan playground. Second, he’s naming the psychic stickiness of hierarchy: if it functions like religion, it produces both obedience and intimacy. People police each other and themselves, not always out of cruelty, but out of the comfort that comes from knowing the rules.

The last line - “It still is to a certain extent” - is the tell. He’s not claiming Dickensian stasis; he’s marking continuity beneath the city’s rebrand as a global, diverse capital. The “certain extent” reads like someone who’s seen the casting room and the dinner table: class now slips through newer filters (education, cultural capital, networks) while still showing up in the oldest place of all - the voice. For an actor, that’s not abstract sociology. It’s the difference between being heard as authority or as an interruption.