Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'd never scan the starters and main courses on a menu in a restaurant as a child. I'd want a dessert for starter, for main course and for dessert.
My parents have a brilliant ear for languages and mimicry and accents, which I think I've inherited - that I can listen to things and pick them up.
A lot of first-time mothers worry about how they will cope. But I'm more patient than I thought I would be even though there are good days and bad days.
Yeah, I talk to everyone. I think that's the secret, you know. Keep it friendly, keep it warm. People just want to connect, don't they, at the end of the day?
It's a collective experience when you're making TV. You think of all the people who work hard to make this extraordinary and you just hope that it works well.
I think if you contribute to a job, and it's repeated and repeated, and sold over the world, and the producers are making millions, you should benefit from it.
I ate ostrich. I'm not very proud of it. I was going through a very experimental period and probably during foot and mouth. It was exquisite, but I felt very guilty.
I never read the good press and never read the bad press. If you believe the good press you're finished. If you believe the bad press, you won't be able to continue.
Ballykissangel' made me a household name, and I am enormously grateful for that, but I don't feel it would ever have developed me into a better actress had I stayed.
Spending time away from family during filming, I think, for every working mum is always difficult. But it has to be done; there's no way round it you've just got to do it.
The very nature of acting is one minute you're up and the next you're down; one minute you're in favour and the next you're forgotten. You go away and you come back again.
Now it comes to this stage of my career when I get to play the wicked witch all the time. You know you start off with Cinderella and then you end up playing the stepmothers.
When I was about nine, I was rushed to hospital to have my appendix removed. Like any child, I was more concerned about missing out on having fun with my friends than my health.
As a chind in Dublin, I can remember having my plate piled high with four or five vegetables - and I'm convinced to this day that my mother's home cooking helped to ward off illness.
It does annoy me when I walk into a room and there are six men over the age of 40 with, let's just say, a major gut problem, and they're saying 'hang on there Dervla, don't eat your chocolate cake at dessert.'
I was a product of the late '70s and early '80s, so when we think of how we're so protective of our kids now, it's sad in a way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we limit the development of our kids in a way.
I am concerned that there's a cavalier attitude to the Irish Peace Process. What poor memories some have; I remember only too well the bag searches, the bomb scares and deaths. As they say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
I was a waitress at a really rundown Italian restaurant in Dublin, for about a week, at 16. I thought it was going to be romantic - overhearing affairs and watching first-time couples all loved up. But instead I was just running about constantly.
I actually thought it was quite nice to feel that I could legitimately take up extra space and not have to apologise for doing so. It goes with the territory and I think you have to embrace your pregnancy otherwise you risk having a terrible time.
Twenty or 30 years ago, certainly when my mother was my age, I'm sure she felt things were pretty over for her. You had your kids when you were 20. You brought them up. They left home. Then what do you do? While I feel genuinely optimistic. Well, I have no other choice.
True Dare Kiss' is a gothic drama about a highly dysfunctional Mancunian family who, after 20 years, reconvene for the funeral of their father. I wanted to play Phil because I really liked the character, and there is an element of mystery about her - which I can't reveal.
A lot of actresses say they are 24 when they are 34 but I find that ridiculous. I wish we didn't succumb to the youth-is-all ideology in this industry, because there is a huge audience out there who want to relate to characters of their own age played by actors of their own age.
My mother was a woman of the '50s who had a family in the '70s while finding her political and feminist voice. She could make marvellous three-course meals after teaching all day but hated it. Because of that legacy, it took me a long time to realise the delights of the family table.