actresses-from-london

"You’ve got your career and all she’s got is a ball in her stomach, lemons everywhere and a bossy mother-in-law."

"It was like a contract signed as a basic human right:You shall never perspire for long."

"Sometimes the best person to listen to is the person who did exactly what you don’t want to do. Don’t let what your grandparents or your mother or anyone else wants or wanted influence you now. I mean, history is important and all that, but at some point, you have to stop blaming other people."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of to have a stutter"

"I think that's almost what it is sometimes if you sum up what acting is. It's just the ultimate expression of empathy."

"“People just want to know something, anything. It’s all the stuff you never want to talk about, the private stuff.”"

"There is absolutely, 100 percent, a light at the end of the tunnel for anyone who stutters."

"The more we mask ourselves, the freer we’re able to be within ourselves."

"If you can capture the humanity of a family struggling in an economic crisis you can make a difference. You can raise awareness just of the simple humanity"

"“You don’t know what to expect because it’s just completely, existentially out of anything that you’ve ever experienced before, and it’s quite indescribable.”"

"I think there is a huge societal pressure on women when it comes to motherhood, this sort of mummy cult that goes on, I think it sort of makes women feel that they have to be a bit defensive about the choices that they make."

"“People quit on jobs. They quit on marriages. They quit on school. There’s an immediacy of this day and age that doesn’t lend itself to being committed to anything.”"

"I find it ԛuitе hаrd tо ѕum uр my rеlаtiоnѕhiр in a sound bite. I fееl that it triviаlizеѕ it fоr оthеr реорlе'ѕ рlеаѕurе. It'ѕ аn adventure."

"When you're in love, you're so happy that you want to tell people about it. But now I have to censor myself. You need to protect the happiness you have."

"She always taught me, ‘Open your heart when times get tough, accept what happens, live in the moment and reach out to help others as there’s always someone worse off than you’. She believed, rightly, that gives you purpose and helps you heal. So I always do my best to forgive and move forward."

"I was always left out when I was a little girl. I was different from everyone…People were jealous but I didn’t realise. I had a reunion with some school friends recently and they said, 'We were mean to you because you got special attention because you were so beautiful.’ I said, 'I wasn’t beautiful. I was gawky.’ I never ever imagined myself to look nice."

"When you get older, as a leading lady it gets harder…You try not to have someone else upstage or take the shine. When I play character roles I am usually playing people who are slightly over the top, so that goes fine."

"Over the years, I’ve learnt that out of challenge comes opportunity and I know if I hadn’t been tested, I wouldn’t have pushed myself or been able to discover my abilities."

"As a mother you have got to have a view for now and a view for the future."

"I've come to see through the course of my life that people understand what I've tried to do, however inadequately I do it. I've just found people have come to understand me and be glad that I tried to do what I tried to do. And I do feel very inadequate about it, but I feel I must try . . . I think that any citizen can understand that you must raise your voice and do the best you can to speak out. CNN Larry King Live (June 18, 2005)."

"I've been to Sarajevo a few times and have got to know a lot of people there who put on plays during the siege. I wanted to share in that because I knew it was important to them . . . I began to see something of what was going on there in terms of actually keeping up people's spirit to resist - the resistance that causes change - even in the worst imaginable circumstances. And I realized that it paralleled the same spirit that existed during the Holocaust and in the gulag. Theater and poetry were what helped people stay alive and want to go on living. That experience changed me, because I realized that if, as actors or writers or directors or designers, we can keep the will to resist alive in as many people as possible, then that's what we are about, and that's what we can do. It's more and more important because of the terrible things that are happening in our cities and the political and economic agendas that various governments have."

"You have to have the courage to stand up for what you believe in – no matter how hard it is – as your beliefs make you who you are amid all the celeb madness. I'm a vegetarian and never wear leather or use products tested on animals. When I was just starting out I'd get a gazillion freebies thrown at me, so it was hard to know what contained what. Now, I've made sure that before I get to a photoshoot people know my stance on that."

"If I woke up tomorrow morning and it was just a dream, it would be the best dream I've ever had, and I would be ― I would not be happy to be waking up! [laughter]"

"[People] would ask me, "what do you want to be when you're older?" and I'd be like, "a singer", and they'd be like, "what do you really want to be?" and I'd be like, "oh, I really want to be a singer.""

"I'm not a loud, extravagant person; I'm never going to be that and, to be honest, I don't want to be like that. I don't show off or boast, and it's pointless to think I'm going to be any different."

"I'd always been quite quiet growing up, and singing was a way of having a voice."

"I was at a really low point, thinking of going to university and doing a course because the music thing just wasn't happening for me. But I went on the show and..."

"Whatever happens to me from now on, I can't ever imagine wanting to distance myself from The X Factor, or having a bad word to say about it, because the show opened doors for me that had never opened before."

"I am vegetarian, so I don't have clothes, shoes or bags made from leather or suede or any animal products. Shoes are hard to find. These are fake Uggs. And I've got a pair of vintage boots, which are PVC."

"I hate the thought of animals being killed just for our pleasure..."

"Diamonds are supposed to be a girl's best friend but it's impossible to know for sure where they have come from so I find it is safer just to avoid them altogether."

"I went to Clive Davis' Grammy party and I nearly spontaneously combusted because everyone on my iPod was there!"

"Those women are the true divas. They're amazing performers, whom I've listened to for years. These are the people who've inspired me to sing, so it's flattering that I'm being compared to them. But I have a lot of hard work to do first."

"I'm trying to stay as healthy as possible but there's no pressure to be really skinny. No. That's just a bit wrong."

"My friends are the ones I've had since primary school. They're really cool and such a good bunch of people. They came to every one of my gigs before all of this happened, you know; they were there in the smoky pubs, wherever."

"He [Simon Cowell] is actually very lovely in real life. We share the same interests, and he shares my love for animals as well."

"No one is "the next" anyone, especially if that person is still here, doing their thing, as she [Mariah] clearly is. The comparisons people have made to me are so flattering, but I think it's insensitive to the people I'm compared to."

"I may not be loud but that doesn't mean I'm not strong within myself. My mum and dad instilled in me to stand up for what I believe in – and I do."

"I've had no demands, no weird requests for strange-colored water or cushions. She's exactly the same person I met two years ago."

"She's a supreme perfectionist and knows her own voice better than any artist I've ever worked with. She's like a scientist when it comes to working in the studio."

"She is probably the best vocalist right now, in our time. [...] Around the world, I have seen her play live, and oh my goodness gracious, she just has the most angelic, amazing range ever."

"I recorded Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis performing Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin together... For me there were several moments that still seem a little unreal [like] realising just how technically and musically accomplished Leona Lewis is as an artist. I've not worked with many singers in the pop world who can discuss coloratura technique, and operas by Purcell and Bellini. [...] Leona can really sing with heart and soul, balanced with quite astounding technique."

"I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage."

"When a woman behaves like a man, why doesn't she behave like a nice man?"

"If you're an actor, a real actor, you've got to be on the stage. But you mustn't go on the stage unless it's absolutely the only thing you can do."

"Actresses are such very dull people off the stage. We are only delightful and brilliant when we are doing what we are told to do. Off stage we are awful chumps."

"A successful artist of any kind has to work so hard that she is justified in refusing to lay down her sceptre until she is placed on the bier."

"Mom, I have something to tell you. My thong, is so far up my crack right now."

"You're not driving my car anymore Mum, I'm sorry."

"You don't go to someone's father, "I don't like the redness in your hair". It's fucking rude. I would never go to her father, "Oh, I don't like the baldness, maybe you should get a fucking tupee."