SOURCE: Suchet, David. “Iago in Othello.” In Players of Shakespeare 2, edited by Russell Jackson and Robert Smallwood, pp. 179-99. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

In the following essay, Suchet, who played the part of Iago with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995, offers a detailed analysis of the character's motivation, suggesting that it is based on unfounded jealousy.

David Suchet played Iago in Terry Hands's production of Othello at Stratford in 1985 and in the following season at the Barbican. He first worked for the RSC, of which he is an Associate Artist, in 1973, when his parts included Tybalt, Orlando, and the King of Navarre. Among his numerous roles for the Company since then have been Caliban (on which he wrote for the first Players of Shakespeare collection), Grumio, Bolingbroke in Richard II, Edward IV in Richard III, and Shylock, as well as Herman Glogauer in Once in a Lifetime, first...