Actresses From England

"Racism is a full-blown normative theory in its own right. Writing it off as just “hate” which needs “love” to combat it can be a little bit reductionist; it can stop us from understanding it."

"Harry Potter is a bit of a bourgeois fantasy."

"The real meaning of the text, or at least one possible meaning of it, is given by something that is not present in the text itself. Basically, meaning is like jazz. It's about the notes you don't play."

"The question I began this investigation with was, is security ever gonna go back to the way it was? And the answer I think I’m flying towards is: No, it isn’t. Unless you demand it."

"Since the position of the transphobe is that trans people don’t really exist, as trans people, and the position of trans people is obviously that they do exist, immediately we can see that no compromise is possible. Things either exist or they don’t, there’s no middle ground. So in any debate on this issue, it’s gonna be winner takes all. The trans person then is in the impossible situation of having to prove their own existence to someone who’s every response is gonna be, “How do you know?”"

"It’s not so much that I need a reason not to have my privacy invaded, it’s that somebody else should have a reason to do it. That’s kind of the point. That’s surely what it means for something to be “none of your business”. And yet, to refuse the search is to immediately mark oneself out as suspicious, as concealing something that is in fact somebody else’s business, because of the security-logic presumption that everyone is guilty until proven innocent."

"Ideologies are like arseholes: everyone's got one, we use it every day, but you very rarely look at your own unless something's gone wrong."

"Security might never go back to the way it was. It can’t. The surveillance and the paranoia and the invasive measures can only ever expand, because it’s not actually grounded in any presently knowable facts about threat or safety. The whole game is about risk-managing the possible future, and since what might happen in the future is infinitely imaginable, the justification for more security becomes infinite too."

"It’s perhaps unsurprising that many though not all people would decide that faced with an opponent whose entire position is the total denial of your humanity as the kind of human being that you are, the only winning move in such a game would be not to play."

"The nature of being raised in the way that I was, it's like, you get told you will be the future leaders of the world and then you get there and you find out the world is not enough."

"I did kind of construct a masculinity out of the best bits of every man that I could find, like the best bits of my brothers and my dad and the best bits of the Bond movies. I tried to do the man of the 21st century thing and, absolutely on it and woke but also compassionate and fun and charming and sexy and all the rest of it and with the muscles and the beard and, I tried to do all of it and it all made me sort of miserable really."

"The reason I left [my pre-transition videos] up is because I don't see Philosophy Tube as being about me, it's a bigger mission about education and people's relationship to knowledge that I am trying to live up to."

"On Philosophy Tube, I call all the shots, I do all the writing, I do all the research. I plan it all out, and it's my show. I miss the feeling of being at the bottom and having to climb up again."

"We’re not a very professional bunch under our roof. We’re amateurs. We just make life up as we go along. I think that sense is very important to try to keep alive"

"It is OK to feel a little bit lost and not know what is going on, and stick with your truth."

"It’s so different hearing all these wonderful stories and then being in it yourself. Of course I was on film sets, but I was so apart from it because I was never involved. But then being in it, it was so exciting to be swept along and to be part of the team, to actually be valuable and feel like you’re useful."

"Comedy is quite different to anything else – the most important thing is getting a laugh, and it’s a technical skill. You can easily kill a laugh by coming in too soon or with a different expression, so in a way it’s much harder work than drama, because with drama you just get into the script and that’s it! And the more you’re into the script, the more convincing you’ll be."

"In film and media I want to see short men with tall women."

"I would be spooning my 6'8" boyfriend. I'm the big spoon, obviously. He'll love that I said that."

"I’ve kicked six stuntmen in the bollocks, hit someone over the back with a lead pipe and launched an iron chair at an assistant director. All completely by accident. When it comes to stunts I have a lot of confidence and little skill."

"I think it’s probably human nature not to appreciate who we are being at any one point in time."

"I must say that I absolutely love the new series, I think it’s fantasic. I’m a bit of a Doctor Who fan now, and I always want to talk about the new series, but nobody will talk to me about that! They all want to know about the classic series."

"I meet women who say, "You were such a hero of mine. I loved the way you were so strong," and all that sort of thing – so I'm very proud to have played a character like that."

"Theatre was always my most magical form of escapism as I grew up. I looked forward to my mum taking me to the Hampstead Theatre more than anything in the world, it’s an art which you get together in a packed auditorium and then are collectively taken somewhere else by the actors, the directors, the lighting magicians, and everyone who goes into making a play magical. And it’s an experience that can’t be replicated online."

"I always assumed my talent would shine through the fact I didn’t always know my lines or had been to bed late. Don’t do that."

"I've had quite a normal childhood. I hear of people who act and they've never been to a real school. I think, well, good for you, you're so successful that you don't have to go to school but you're not really preparing yourself for the real world, and acting isn't the real world."

"I get angry about so many things I read in the news. But I think it’s good to be angry. If we stop being angry about what’s going on around us then we normalise those injustices."

"I am so sad to hear of her passing but at the same time so glad to have met her and experienced first-hand her warm, fun-loving personality. Her voice will sing in my heart forever."

"As we commemorate 75 years since Victory in Europe, we must all remember the brave boys and what they sacrificed for us … they left their families and homes to fight for our freedom, and many lost their lives trying to protect us and our liberties. This year, we must commemorate this special anniversary apart. I hope that VE Day will remind us all that hope remains even in the most difficult of times and that simple acts of bravery and sacrifice still define our nation as the NHS works so hard to care for us. Most of all, I hope today serves as a reminder that however hard things get, we will meet again."

"There are two separate answers…For people in general, I think they should name themselves in whatever way they wish. The flourishing of the gay movement in America is clearly very necessary and the identity that people could proudly lay claim to is crucial. Lives are lost every day because of bigotry in this country. So I think that should not prevail."

"...people shouldn’t have to make statements and their lives should be private if they want to be. But I think if someone’s feeling restricted by not making a statement, then they should be free to do so. I chose to speak to you because I don’t want to lie by omission and I want to be very straightforward about my life..."

"As a seven-year-old, I remember people were appalling – they would just comment on his physicality…We’d walk down the street together and people would shout out insults. I remember feeling incredibly angry."

"If you’re told that’s how you behave in order to survive and flourish, then you actually question far less in your 20s and 30s because you think: ‘Oh, nothing’s as bad as that.’ So it’s a real issue. No one wants their teenage daughter thinking that’s what you should expect from your life."

"…Teenagers today are so fluid and non-binary; they’re fantastically unafraid. My house [growing up] was a bit like that. I’ve loved men and I’ve loved women and I was raised to feel like I could love who I wanted. We could talk about everything in the world."

"I was unaware really of the importance of it at the time, but I was asked to go for an interview, which I did, and I was the first person that Mick Jackson saw for the part. And I went looking rather radical, because I thought "oh, it's about nuclear war", you know, and I'm a very radical person, so I kind of went wearing my sort of "combat gear" which was very "in" at the time. And it was really strange, because afterwords, when I got the part of Ruth, who turned out to be a very fragile sort of a person, I was surprised and he said having been the first one, he saw me for the part. He obviously saw something in me that was, I don't know, vulnerable, maybe. It was the only time I've ever said to a director "I would really like a part in this, regardless of what that part may be", because I knew that the content would be close to my heart."

"It was cloaked to a great extent in secrecy almost. [...] You knew what it was about, but the script was a close-kept secret I think. Not many people had seen it, and I think they were worried that it would go the same way as War Games, which was made but never seen, so it was all quite mysterious really."

"I think if you put an infallible weapon into man's fallible hands there is always a threat that something's going to go wrong."

"At first he said that he wouldn't do Threads, but then he thought about it and thought, "Well, I'd rather nobody else do it, I'd rather do it myself"."

"I think Threads didn't keep people at arm's length, it drew people in because of the characters that everybody knew. I mean, we related to them, and that's what I think made Threads so visceral for people."

"We did have rehearsal time at the BBC and we did have access to material out of Japan (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), which hadn't really been accessed at the time by people in the Western world, so literature that was grim, seriously grim. And I know there were times when I used to come home on the bus after rehearsal and having sort of steeped myself in this research where I wanted to shout out to everybody on the bus "do you know? Do you know what this is about? What could happen to us?". It gets into your bones a bit when you are working that closely with things."

"It's hard to watch and it should be hard to watch. It should frighten people, and if it's done that, it's done its job."

"[Objecting to "radical feminists" opposition to trans people] How could you be so white and privileged and heterosexual and never marginalised in your life yet you decide to punch down on people?"

"[The issue of safe spaces for biological women] I don't get this. I'm in my 45th year in showbusiness, travelling the country touring. I've been to every service-station toilet in the country. Every one has a sign up saying male cleaners in attendance. I don't recall anybody saying, "We need to group up against these male cleaners." Why would someone dress as a woman when they could just pick up a cleaning cloth? If it really bothers you there's a toilet some place else. Go there. Shut up. Let's join together and fight stuff that actually needs fighting. Why are they talking about this when women in Afghanistan are not allowed to sing or to look a man in the face? Who is benefiting from all this? The patriarchy. It makes me so sad."

"When the feminist movement started in the 60s and 70s, lesbians were often excluded, because we were told that we would make the movement less palatable. I have been excluded myself, so how could I do that to someone else?"

"[Guests have been asked to say their favourite thing about Denmark]."

"There are only two countries in the world where representatives of the state religion automatically get a seat in the legislature: the UK and Iran. Obviously, there are fundamental differences between the two countries and in the religious representatives’ views, but it is symbolic all the same. How can it be that our democratic system draws parallels with an Islamic theocracy?"

"I don't want anybody to say to me, 'I'm fine with it, I accept you.' You think, wow, thanks so much, because if you hadn't I would have killed myself."

"[Homophobic hostility is being caused by the] intemperate language on social media around the trans discussion. That's opened the door to people thinking it's now fair to have a general go at diversity, that the world is too woke. I don't know how you can be too woke — woke means being awake to the dangers that are around you. Mental health within the LGBTQ community is not good and that's not because you're not comfortable with who you are. It's the way society treats you."

"[On men who take off their shirts in public.] There's an awful lot of lard out there. No woman would do that."

"[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."