Men can be a great deal of work for very little reward.
Why put make-up on when you only have to take it off again?
When I have to cry, I think about my love life. When I have to laugh, I think about my love life.
My job is to see the world through the character's eyes.
I studiously avoid any academic dissections of the play and any kind of previous experience of playing. For me, it's all in the play.
My mother kept all my awards on the sideboard of her front room, and she polished them. She polished everything religiously. And it doesn't take long for the very thin layer of gold to disappear and the base metal underneath to show through.
I've always said the first duty of life is to live it, and I do believe that. And we delude ourselves if we think it's not going to end. How we individually meet that, I think, is entirely individual.
Usually, if there is a woman's part in a piece, there's only one, so you've got no other actresses to work with.
My fear with 'Lear' was that I would not have the physical or vocal strength. But this play, it's all in your head. That was one of the really interesting things when we were rehearsing it: We were all exhausted because it was all up here.
If a woman is successful, then she's deemed to be the exception that proves the rule. If a woman fails, well, we're all failures. That kind of underlying approach to our gender doesn't seem to me to have changed an iota.
I find it extraordinary that contemporary dramatists don't find women interesting. Women are rarely, if ever, the central dramatic engine; they're there as an adjunct, and that hasn't changed at all.
I turn my feet in when I'm sitting down. I tend to put my arms across me when I'm sat thinking; I bend forwards. Loads of protective curves.
Anything I could have done that was legal to get Margaret Thatcher's government out I was prepared to do. I could not believe what she was doing to this country.
No, I didn't think of myself as an idealist. I consider myself as a believer in what I regard as the Labour Party's basic principles, which have to do with equality and 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. You know, the golden rules.
You don't do a play to compete for an award. This was the argument I always had over the Oscars. I didn't win them. They were given to me. All I did was 2 films. People always say the analogy is Olympic gold medals.
The best teacher is an audience. The ideal performance is when that group of strangers sitting in the dark gets energy from the group in the light and sends energy back to us. When it really works, a perfect circle is formed.
Rock Hudson. He was an absolute human being. Charming, funny, real.
You can go onto that stage every night, and it's always the equivalent of going onto the topmost diving board, and you don't know if there's any water in the pool.
I was blessed by my parents and my antecedents by a very strong work ethic. I mean, being a Member of Parliament is 24/7, just as much as when you're actually doing a play. It's not quite 24/7, but it's the work that counts.
When I was feeding myself by being a professional actress, I never got a good notice in the 'Evening Standard.' And when I changed direction and became a Labour MP, I was the wrong political party for the 'Evening Standard.'
