Actresses From England

"[On teaching her children to have good manners.] It's mainly because I wanted to send them out in the world and have everybody like them."

"When I was a small child and adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always beamed and said, ‘A vegetarian’. And that’s exactly what I became. Despite growing up with parents who lived on meals of meat and two veg, eating animals never made sense to me. … I grew up surrounded by dogs and cats and couldn’t understand why we protected these animals, played with them, encouraged them to sleep in our beds, and called them ‘pets’ while labelling other equally interesting, cuddly, and sentient animals ‘dinner’."

"Animals that are killed for their flesh lead miserable lives. They are kept in disgusting conditions. The simplest little thing you can do not to hurt animals is just not eat them. I'm bringing my four children up vegetarian, and I know absolutely that I'm giving them the very best start in life."

"As long as there is a possibility of working I'm not going to retire because if I retire nothing will work any more, and it's hard enough as it is. I'm very conscious that I'm in the minority in that I love what I do. How big is the number of people who are running to work to do a job that they like? And how lucky to be employed at it – how incredibly lucky."

"When I look back, I've had an incredibly lucky life. Being tall with unusual looks helped, although I did build a barrier around myself early on because of shyness. I know I could have enjoyed my life a lot more then if I'd been the person I am today."

"I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York. I got the job – much to my parents' horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress."

"I would be harder, tougher. I would put myself about more. I should have mixed with more people which would have led to more opportunities. As I said, I had this sort of "keep away from me" look, barrier, whatever, and I guess people might have thought I was snooty, which I wasn't, but that was my way of just coping with things. Many stars come to sticky ends, so I think maybe it's just as well. At least I am still here, for which I'm grateful."

"I think you’ve got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other."

"I've always known I wanted to go into acting, but being a very proud teenager I wasn't ready to admit it until I felt like it was going to be possible. I acted in school and I did some short films in Portugal and some Portuguese theater and things like that, [but] obviously there's only so far you can go, so I moved to London and pursued it here. It all fell into place very quickly. I got an agent and from that point on I got very ballsy and said, "I'll get the work with or without you so you better send me to these auditions." Somehow, I got the first one I went for—I think I was so blinded by adrenaline and excitement. She was an East End showgirl. I just winged it. I remember getting to set and realizing that I was the least experienced one. I remember thinking, "Oh my God, what have I done? What have I gotten myself into?" It worked; I'm still here."

"You know my philosophy is that the world is a big place so if you get the chance to live abroad lessons in life it gives you are like no other. I moved to Cascais when I was one and a half. I do feel very fortunate that I grew up in a Latin culture and learnt another language. When I approach a character or a script I can approach it from different points of view, with maybe a more international perspective."

"I am Joss Stone and I am a vegetarian. I'm a singer, a songwriter, a performer and a human being accepting of all sizes, shapes, colours and species."

"I was born a vegetarian. … I feel there is no need to cause another living thing pain or harm. There are so many other things we can eat. I have never eaten meat in my life, and I’m 5 foot 10 and not exactly wasting away. A wise man once said, ‘Animals are my friends, and I’m not in the habit of eating my friends.’ That is exactly how I feel."

""There are so many misunderstandings in life. I once caused a scandal by saying I lived with two men [...] I didn't mean it in a sexual sense...I was just too dirty to clean my act up. We were just like any people sharing an apartment."."

"...The tabloids are only there for those who choose to be in them. Personally, I’d rather not. In France you have the law on your side, unlike in England where the papers can really come into your life and shatter it."

"Age teaches you not to try and change your true nature, and just to go with it. So I spend a lot of time going down under, to find my own personal integrity within myself."

"Some people can’t bear their faces, so they change them. I happen to like mine. I’ve always seen it as a reference: a sort of face value that I could always relate to, however puckered and strange it may be. In the end, it’s all you’ve got, because you’re alone a lot of the time."

"I’ve driven across America, lived in New York and Los Angeles, made films in Colorado and Salt Lake City, and spent a long time in San Francisco. But I have only ever seen America for what it is, from a European viewpoint. I consciously choose not to live and work there. I feel much freer here. I actually feel quite threatened in America. New York is a world of its own, and Los Angeles is movie world, but as for the rest of America... Well, I’m afraid I don’t really understand it."

"We weren't happy. It was a nightmare, breaking the rules and all that. Everyone seemed to be having fun, but they were so taking many drugs they wouldn't know it anyway."

"I thought that after such a long time of not letting her be with me. I would like to bring her back into my life."

"I was kind of a tomboy climbing trees so it never crossed my mind, no."

"I think the only way you can successfully be a mum and an actress is by not carrying around the burden of the character. Between the time the director says "Action" and "Cut," it's all true for me. But when I stop saying the lines, it's not true anymore."

"As a child in North London it never crossed my mind that I would ever play the Wicked Witch of the East."

"The thing about dancers is they're a certain breed. You don't do it to become rich and famous, you don't do it to have a really long career or to be the star, you do it because you can't imagine your life not doing it."

"I don't know how they do it but those two love each other so much. They're this husband and wife duo that work together all the time and yet I've never seen them have an argument. I've never seen them kind'of roll their eyes at each other. I've never seen anything like that. They are the perfect example of a fabulous marriage."

"All women are aware of that moment when suddenly the boys don't look at you. It's a fairly common thing, when suddenly you no longer attract that instant male attention because of the way you look. I never really knew how to enjoy beauty, but it took the form of a subconscious arrogance, expecting things, all muddled up with celebrity."

"In the 1970s I was amazed to be talked about as a '60s sex symbol. I wasn't that person, as if I were a doll from the past. I had to learn to come to terms with that. It's funny, it's silly, the ridiculousness of having asked so much of celebrity. Then it becomes really interesting and very much part of the excitement of the life you’re living now, knowing you’re approaching the end of it."

"To people who've been looked at and considered beautiful, particularly women who relied on it so much... age is quite a challenge. The thing which you've always used, a power, is taken away from you."

"I had almost no education. I hardly went to school. I’d be away for weeks doing films, then I’d come back and have no idea what they were talking about. Of course the other kids loved it: ‘You may be a well-known star but you don’t know how to do algebra.’ It was a nightmare."

"It was a strange life, I suppose, but it was the only one I’ve ever known. What is a normal childhood anyway?"

"I was with Karen Carpenter in Vegas. We were invited to Elvis's dressing room and I had to drag her away. She was such a sweet girl but I could see what was going on. I met him a few times after that, and he flirted very heavily with me. I was supposed to do a movie with him and that was stopped right away by my husband!"

"I did all my real growing up in France, which I was almost not allowed to do at home. They liked my voice, they found me sexy, they didn't know anything about my childhood. In England, you’d come on to a bright cheerful song, do a bit of comedy, finish on a big ballad and wear a sparkly dress. That was about it. Suddenly I saw people like Aznavour and Piaf, songs coming from your heart, your soul, your guts, your sex, whatever, songs about everything, life and death, love and hate, wow! I realised you can use all of you when you perform."

"I am not really a reminiscing type person. I am not nostalgic at all."

"It always makes me laugh when people ask why anyone would want to do a sitcom in America. If it runs five years, you never have to work again."

"I remember once saying that I'd like to go to university. My father told me: "I would rather see you dead at my feet than have you go to a university." I'm laughing about it now, but at the time I was terribly upset. I didn't even understand what going to university meant."

"We'd seen all the rushes, which we thought very funny, but the premiere audience reaction was cold and so were the reviews. However, the moment it was released it made audiences everywhere laugh like anything, and it showed that our original reaction had been right. What a relief!"

"[On Norman Wisdom] One knew that he would lay his hands on anybody [...] You had to make sure you nipped about a bit. There's a way of doing it without reprimanding. He obviously had a terrific inferiority complex."

"I can remember what I ate. Coconut squares dipped in chocolate, wrapped in gold paper."

"I had to hide every morning, until Daddy had gone out to work. And then stay out late to try to avoid him in the evening. Because of these terrible rows. Mummy would come and try to get me to go back home in the middle of the day. After about a year the school said look, this cannot carry on. I had to leave."

"I think my parents had visions of me being found in the Thames with six illicit foetuses in my womb and needle marks up my arm."

"It's really splendid, my dear. Are you going to bring it into town?"

"You get set on a path and, if you succeed, you get better parts, but of the same kind. If you don't take a lot of trouble, you get stuck like that."

"Home life was horrid. Daddy used to knock me about with his fists, and my mother would egg him on."

"[On Kenneth Williams] He was quite happy to steal the good lines I made up and use them before I could say them [...] He would do anything as long as he came out best. It was outrageous."

"How Henry would have loved it."

"Tall, slender, with beautiful flaxen hair, grey eyes, full red lips, finely framed features, graceful of carriage and movement, fresh and always young, Ellen Terry was as much an art object as an actress."

"The exciting thing about seeing a new show is that you are taken on a journey of surprises, if you know what’s coming it takes away the fun."

"Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."

"The part never calls for it. And I've never ever used that excuse. The box office calls for it."

"At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words "fuck off" much more frequently."

"Adam and Evelyne was a charming light comedy in which Jean started off as a teenager who goes away to finishing school in Switzerland and returns a sophisticated young woman [-] It was quite extraordinary playing love scenes with someone you loved and who was in love with you. [-] She enjoyed it thoroughly and when, in the film, I was telling her how much I loved her but that I was afraid I was too old for her, she'd mutter under her breath, "You're telling me, you dirty old man." Later, when she had to tell me she loved me, she'd whisper "and I mean it, too.""