I've witnessed the survival of the theatre several times when it was meant to be dying.
I vote, but I don't feel that I'm achieving much when I do.
Male playwrights, on the whole, are probably more interested in male characters. They need women characters to be the women in their lives or to be the domestic difficulty.
Where does an actress go after playing Cleopatra's magnificent death? Why didn't Shakespeare write more - and more powerful - roles for mature women?
I've been taking lessons in Damehood from Judi Dench. Being a Dame is useful in restaurants, hotels, and restaurants, Judi says, but you have to get someone else to do the booking.
I yearn to make a really good, intelligent movie before I die: I don't completely rule out the possibility, but in Hollywood, I'm not bankable.
I decided I was going to play Cleopatra as someone with a brain. She's kept Egypt, this tiny country, in a balance of power with the almighty Roman empire, and she's done it through force of personality.
The language is always powerful in Shakespeare, but with 'Antony and Cleopatra,' the speeches are so big and muscular and rich - exhausting to speak, actually.
Cleopatra was exhausting to play, but also completely exhilarating. She creates her own energy.
I'm no longer the young woman I was playing before, and I'm in a profession where that continuum that is me is irrelevant to most people - they're meeting me for the first time, seeing me for the first time, and they're seeing an old woman, so that's what I've got to start being.
Acting is what I do with who I am.
I've found a much better love life in older age.
You need to distinguish between getting something off your chest that won't help anyone else or saying something because you know you will be hell to live with if you don't. Quite often, this will be beyond your control.
I'm an oversharer but selective about who I share with.
Love is different at different stages of your life.
When I was really young, I wanted to be a fishmonger's wife.
I've one of those brains that doesn't quieten down.
My strangest experience was my six words in 'Star Wars.' I've had more fanmail from that than anything I've ever done.
