Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I've got a feisty face.
You can't escape your face.
Filming in London is brilliant.
I'd do anything with Tom Courtenay.
My husband says I'm a grumpy lioness.
I'd really like to play Lady Macbeth.
At home, people very rarely recognise me.
Derek Jacobi is probably our finest actor.
I just want to carry on doing high-quality work.
I want to watch telly that reflects the world I see.
I'd be an absolutely appalling detective... Appalling.
It's totally different playing a lawyer and a detective.
Don't worry about fitting in - it's completely over-rated.
'Better do it than wish it done,' is a phrase ingrained in my mind.
Cornwall is my favourite place - I wish I could earn a living there.
I get quite fearful about interviews, so I sought advice from other actors.
It's satisfying to watch a story where you feel like you're a fly on the wall.
I love being the first person to play a part. I really get a big thrill out of it.
When I look back at the Nineties, I realise there wasn't very much TV I wanted to do.
In this industry, people like to look at different faces on their screens - even I do.
I was always about working. I like working. I don't like being unemployed. I love acting.
I'm a proper Essex girl because my family was part of that great exodus from the East End.
There aren't many shows that encompass roles for a seven-year-old to someone in their 50s.
Most people feel like they're out of step, so just have the conviction to go your own way.
When you're both actors, it is feast or famine financially and emotionally in your marriage.
We're all used to seeing a lot of cop shows, some of them brilliant, some of them very generic.
It can be tough to turn things down, but as an actor, being in demand is a nice problem to have.
You just have to look at me to know what I am feeling. So I would be a useless policewoman or spy.
I am very good at keeping secrets, except when I am drunk, when I will tell you absolutely anything.
I noticed that, on 'Spooks,' there were a lot of women behind the camera and in different departments.
The confidence and charisma it takes to stand up in front of a group of children absolutely terrifies me.
I can't tell you the excitement to be in a new TV series or a play you've got to read for. That's the best.
The people I've met who are divorce lawyers, there's a sense of them having to look reassuringly expensive.
When I'm not working, as a family we are obsessed with jumping off rocks into the sea and doing dangerous things.
I don't have a preferred medium of work, but like all actors, I do like to move from one to the other if possible.
People very rarely know my real name but recognise me as characters from my shows, such as 'Last Tango In Halifax.'
If you could make telly as good as radio, it would be amazing - audio can do things so easily that television can't.
My two great fears are either not working or working on something that means you can't do something else you really want.
My dad always jokes that if I ever write an autobiography, which I'm not going to, it'll be called 'It's Tough in the Middle.'
Once you've sat in a room annoying Derek Jacobi while he's trying to do his crossword, you're prepped for working with the greats.
Breakfast is a battle. I never feel like eating, but I have now found my way to porridge. I have it with full-fat milk and banana.
It always makes me laugh to think that I get to sit around and chat with people like Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi and get paid for it.
Roast potatoes - I can't say no. At Christmas, I reach over for the fifth or sixth one, and I think I could keep going until I explode.
When the acting all dries up, I won't be going there - either to the police force or to the church. I'll have to think of something else!
The best thing my mum and dad did was to send me to the local youth theatre. I loved that; I felt I'd found the thing I really wanted to do.
I wish someone had got hold of me and said, 'You know, children are really good fun. You will have a fantastic time, and you will still work.'
'Spooks' was unique. It took up such a lot of your life - I think we did 10 episodes for the first few seasons. That's six months of your life.
I find the whole ceremony of marriage a bit like going to work. Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair.
It's now become a joke in my family that as soon as I finish a job, I'm on a loop saying, 'I'm never going to work again' - it drives everyone mad!
'Collateral' poses lots of questions and does it within the format of a really good, tense thriller. It starts at a real pace, and it doesn't let go.