Actresses From England

"Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong."

"[Feminism]'s not about us convincing you that gender equality is worth engaging in only because there might be something in it for you, or in it for your sister or your mother. The question is, what's in it for humans?"

"Empathy and the ability to use your imagination should have no limits."

"It just always reveals to me how many misconceptions and what a misunderstanding there is about what feminism is. Feminism is about giving women choice. Feminism is not a stick with which to beat other women with. It’s about freedom, it’s about liberation, it’s about equality. I really don’t know what my tits have to do with it. It’s very confusing."

"I think I'm actually in denial that I'm famous, it only sinks in when people crowd in the streets. My friends treat me like a regular person, which is what I wanted."

"It was unbelievable seeing me as an action figure! In a few months, toddlers all around the country will be biting my head off!"

"In Cancún, I felt like I had walked into an American teen movie."

"I can't wait to be able to drive, but it's hard. Good driving doesn't really run in my family genes. My mother is possibly the worst driver ever."

"Margot Grahame, the countess, was a pouty siren known as "the Aluminum Blonde" — Britain's answer to Jean Harlow."

"Margo. The 'T' is silent as in Harlow."

"Did my mother know … Of course she did — and she didn't mind a bit. They had an incredibly happy marriage, but my father wasn't faithful to her for a single second. There was scarcely a trace of jealousy in her character. She worshipped the ground he walked on, but she wasn't very highly sexed — she was quite glad that other women were taking the weight off her, as it were. I once asked her if she minded. She said: "They were the flowers, but I was the tree.""

"It was reported that the fireworks were beginning and Diana, ever enthusiastic, led the procession to the roof. I was bringing up the rear, had reached the top floor and was about to climb the ladder that led up from it, when I heard the sound of shattered glass followed, after what seemed to me a long interval, by the sound of a falling body. I opened a door from behind which the noise seemed to come and looked into a narrow box-room, on the floor of which Diana was lying. She had fallen through a skylight about twenty-five feet from the floor. The opening was so narrow that the large hat she was wearing remained on the roof. She had broken her thigh... This was not an auspicious beginning to our married life."

"It has always been my temptation to put myself in other people's shoes: even into a horse's shoes as he strains before the heavy dray; into a ballerina's points as she feels age weigh upon her spring; into Cinderella's slippers as she danced till midnight; into the jackboot that kicks; into the Tommy's boots that tramp; into the magic seven-leaguers. With experience of age I have learned to control this habit of sympathy which deforms truth."

"You find something agreeable in almost everyone. I am put off by anything not wholly agreeable."

"You have never, I think, known real Grief — panic, melancholia, madness, night-sweats, we've all known for most of our lives — you and me particularly. I'm not sure you know human love in the way I do. You have faith and mysticism — intense inner interests — a diverting, virile mind — gusto for vengeance and destruction if necessary, a fancy — a gospel. What you can't imagine is a creature with a certain iridescent aura and nothing within but a beating frightened heart built round and for Duff. . . For two days I am quite alone — in these empty rooms with one thought one prayer — "let it end now" — an absurd feminine desire to die in the same way exactly as Duff. [ I have now a ] fearlessness of death — so let it come now before custom of living disinclines me for dying."

"I do think it’s important for young women to know that magazine covers are retouched. People don’t really look like that. In films I might look glamorous, but I’ve been in hair and make-up for two hours."

"I don’t particularly remember sitting at home crying and eating endless packets of HobNobs. I don’t remember doing that at all. Honestly, I think it was a stress thing or something. I don’t know."

"I need to be looked after. I’m not talking about diamond rings and nice restaurants and fancy stuff—in fact, that makes me uncomfortable. I didn’t grow up with it and it’s not me, you know. But I need someone to say to me, ‘Shall I run you a bath?’ or ‘Let’s go to the pub, just us.’"

"I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city and I think, I should make more of an effort. I should look like that. But then I think, They can’t be happy in those heels."

"This is going to sound really weird, but I never had a desire to be famous. I never had huge ambitions — never."

"Everyone can commit to 20 minutes, especially if there’s a glass of Chardonnay afterwards."

"I know when I walk into that classroom in the morning, even if it’s for a split second, at some point I’m being checked out."

"I’m not classically trained. I didn’t come from the fancy home, no."

"I first auditioned Kate Winslet when she was 17. I thought she was 25. Such was her self-possession, presence and concentration...later, I cast her as Ophelia in a film of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I did not ask her to audition...She listened with superhuman acuity, and expressed character with effortless depth... (now) those same qualities are radiant, having now evolved into a truly awesome acting technique. Only now, hers is the art that entirely hides the artist...It’s magnificent to watch."

"You know why I fear people’s judgment? Because I know they’re judging. I know they are."

"She's a very gentle and grounded person, so I suppose I could say that I'm not worried about her. She knows the industry extremely well. She has a really wonderful family, too. Yeah, of course we talked about it. Of course we do. It's a great privilege to be able to share the experiences I have had with her. Am I going to be specific about what we shared? No [laughs]. But she's going to be just fine. She's a really great human being. She's going to be tremendous actually."

"It's a funny time to be nominated for things and accepting prizes when people as great as him have left us. But I don't want to leave you on a sad note, so I'm going to tell a funny story about Al if I can. When I worked with him when I was only 19 years old, I was absolutely terrified on day one, and I remember him looking at me, and I remember feeling so small, smaller than I'd ever felt before in my life. And after a few weeks of getting to know him and realizing just how wonderful and warm he really was, I was standing there in my costume on Sense and Sensibility, and my knickers had gone up my bum. And, you know, when you're trying to flit your knickers out of your arse and you're wearing a corset, it's actually quite tricky. And so I was sort of yanking at my pants, and Emma Thompson was standing right there, and I said, 'fuck, my fucking knickers have gone up my arse!' And Al just said, 'ah... feminine mystique strikes again.'"

"I don't look like that and I don't desire to look like that."

"Even now I do not consider myself to be some kind of great, sexy beauty. I don’t mind the way I’m ageing. No reason to panic just yet. I think I look my age, and that’s fine. The lord God almighty has done me proud with my features which I'm proud of and have no desire to alter them. I say " let nature take its course "."

"Skinner had a huge, huge, huge crush on Scully and that's why he was so pissed off at Mulder all the time, because he knew he didn’t have a chance and it was always there. And it was so easy; just looking at you. Because I had a crush on you! I ended up marrying her photo-double, so here you go. That's all I'm going to say about that."

"I was very lucky to see the brilliant Gillian Anderson as Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic in London the other night. She is just exceptional... what a power house."

"When I did The X-Files I didn't have a lot to do with her, except when I was lying there dead. But she was so sweet; she welcomed me to the set, she thanked me for being a part of the show. An Amazing woman. I think she also broke boundaries, because on television she wasn’t this tall statuesque blonde that you would expected that the network would cast. They cast this really interesting, beautiful, nonetheless but interesting, intelligent woman. And I think she changed the way people perceived women on television, because she broke the mold. She wasn't what you expected and she ended being probably one of the most beautiful. So I have huge admiration for her."

"Dear Gillian, You are completely and utterly self obsessed. If you spent a quarter of your time thinking about others instead of how much you hate your thighs, your level of contentment and self worth would expand exponentially. One thing I learned way too late in the game for my own good was that you can effectively increase your self esteem by doing estimable things. Therefore I have signed you up to build homes for the homeless during your entire summer vacation. Your Christmas will be spent serving food at a battered women’s shelter and Easter is designated to reading stories to children in the pediatric cancer ward. Four months out of 16years dedicated to human beings other than yourself, you have gotten off easy. Oh and honey expand your horizons; your world is a bigger oyster than your low self-esteem wants you to believe. Love yourself; think of others and be grateful. I love you, I believe in you, and I look forward to respecting you. Me. You. Us P.S. Follow your dreams, not your boyfriends."

"By moving to London I removed myself from the madness of the entertainment industry. I love the city and the culture, and it was an opportunity to bring my children up in a more sane environment."

"I would never point a finger at anyone and say, 'They lived their life badly.' I take it as it comes and deal with each situation as it arrives."

"I became an actor because it was the only thing I could do. I didn't have any friends, I didn't fit in. But when I started acting everything in my life shifted and I felt happy."

"When I finished the series, I wasn't going to do television again. I never wanted to do television to begin with, and I was so exhausted by the process that I was wary of being in front of the camera again."

"I try, in my life, to follow my heart. I know what it feels like to do things that are soul-decaying. A large aspect of life in Hollywood, in a stereotypic way, I find unbelievably soul-decaying. And I choose, albeit frustratingly to other people in my life, not to expose myself too much to too much of that."

"In England, I get offered films. I don't get offers in America. People don't know what to do with me in America. And I've disappeared."

"I also respond very strongly to characters I have not done before... something I can really sink my teeth into, and what's scary, and what terrifies me, because that's where I need to go."

"I always felt I wasn't completely American and I wasn't completely British: there was a feeling of having my feet in both places."

"If I chose to have a nanny, I'd be able to pay to have a nanny - a lot of women don't have that opportunity. I don't feel like I'm a working single mom, because I have that option that a lot of people don't have."

"You know, the last time I was on [the show], we were talking about colonics and this is a little step up."

"Directing was a transformative experience for me, one that I really enjoyed."

"Having been Scully for such a long time, I have to prove myself in other roles."

"There is this view that if you are not tormented you cannot be vital and creative. I would like to think that is not true."

"When I was younger I think I showed off and I fed off the attention. And to a certain degree that has been satiated in this job, just in doing what I do. I think it's enough that I don't need to then push it."

"Sometimes, I genuinely enjoy having conversations with journalists; enjoying the few moments of intimacy with a stranger is fascinating to me. But once in a while that backfires and you're suddenly reading something that has a bent on it that you didn't feel was in the least bit a part of the conversation that you thought you were having. Then you get overly protective and say very little and then you come out of the hole again."

"My whole belief system is that our paths are drawn for us. I believe in reincarnation. I believe we're here to learn and grow. We choose how we come into this life based on what it is we have to learn. Some people have harder lessons than others."

"Another miraculous result of playing Scully has been all the incredible young women I have been blessed to meet along the way--women who have shared that they have received strength from Scully, that because of Scully's strength they have been afraid but done it anyway. These have been women from all walks of life: women from low-income neighborhoods who have persevered despite all odds to study hard and pursue their dreams, enabling them to enter into better schools and work environments; women who have illness and physical challenges who have gotten better and stronger because they believe they can. I truly believe that we can overcome any hurdle that lies before us and create the life we want to live. I have seen it happen time and time again."