I feel like I've cheated. I never knew what to do. I was never a good enough painter to earn a living, and so I drifted into the theatre, and I've had a successful life. I feel guilty that I've never done a day's work in my life!
I denied this for many, many years and years... but you cannot help but not see a little of my mother in the character of Edna.
I guess you could say I'm an addict - an adrenalin addict - I get great excitement and stimulation from doing stuff in public, even though I'm nervous and I have very bad stage fright.
Am I old-fashioned? I think I might be. I am a lucky woman, because I was born with a priceless gift... the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.
Political correctness means nothing to me. Nothing. It's the new Puritanism, darling. Preventing us from expressing ourselves.
What is extraordinary about the character of Edna - and I speak as though I am completely outside this character and I am talking to you - I'm, as it were, in the wings, and she's on stage, and every now and then she says something extremely funny, and I stand there and think: 'I wish I'd thought of that.'
Oddly enough, Dame Edna is not interested in show business. Her friends in Los Angeles are mostly in the world of petroleum. She used to have some acting friends. Sadly, Joan Rivers has passed on. Larry Hagman was a close friend. A number of others.
There's to be a film about my life. I can give this as an exclusive now. Meryl Streep was offered the part but, no, I wanted Kate Winslet. Kylie Minogue is playing me in middle age. In old age, I'm not sure who's going to play me. I haven't got there yet. Perhaps Cate Blanchett. Or Jacki Weaver.
I never thought that I would become a staple in the Australian cultural diet. The equivalent of bread or milk, or a fine old Tasmanian Mauve Vein. I think it's because I talk about things that people dare not mention. I don't mean raunchy things or unsavoury things. I call a spade a spade - I discuss things in a realistic manner.
I have beautiful, beautiful clothes, designed by my bachelor boy son, Kenny. Kenny has a big following as it is, and even Lady Gaga has asked Kenny to design dresses for her. But Kenny isn't very keen on, well, shall we say, extreme women. He likes someone that women all over the world can identify with.
My husband passed away a long time ago, and of course a lot of people have courted me. I've been taken to dinner and also to things like Larry Hagman, in particular years ago. And more recently, of course, little Hugh Jackman - and he's too young for me though, frankly.
I really feel sorry for kids who aren't interested in history - recent history, either, because it is this that made us what we are.
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were friends and the last people I expected would predecease me. They were, in a sense, casualties of fame.
I hate it when theater people go on about professionalism - aren't they boring? I try to be as unprofessional as possible. And I'm a little bit politically incorrect.
In Australia, they really want to turn me into a religion. A religion! Can you imagine? The Church of Edna? Oh. I don't want to be over-revered.
I am writing a book called 'The History of Australia in Hundred Objects.' It's of things we have invented in Australia. And you know, some of them are amazing. We invented the clapper boards used in films. We invented those cranes - those big long cranes used on construction sites.
I've turned from an ordinary Australian housewife into a gigastar, icon, talk-show host, swami, spin doctor... and now I'm a style guru!
Those women with collagen lips just look like frogs - 'muffin mouths,' I call them. There's not a line on their brows, and all the emotion gone from their faces, like all those actresses in 'Desperate Housewives.'
Madonna is a creation, so perhaps we should give her and the factory that created her a little credit, but I think that she should quietly disappear now. Poor Madge seems unable to decide whether she wants to look like Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich.
When people laugh at me, they are not laughing in the way that they normally would at a comedian. They are laughing with relief, because the truth has been spoken, and political correctness has not strangled this particular gigastar.
