actresses-from-england

"The truth is, I hate acting. Acting is actually the hardest thing to do. It's this elusive thing and you think you have it—it’s like trying to grip smoke. I love it so much."

"It was a good 10 hours in the makeup chair, and then I’d go and do a 12-hour day on set, and the makeup artist, Sarah Rubano, who was incredible, would constantly be touching me up and making sure my contacts were all right and all those sorts of things."

"Like everybody else, I was blown away. That’s when I said, 'However she makes the sauce, I would love to cook with her. What she was doing in Pearl was incredibly hard to do. I thought, My God, she just did a quadruple somersault over a fire pit."

"To know [that] the lead of a movie is willing to basically do whatever to make the movie is a good feeling. That inspires the confidence to push things. Movies like Pearl and MaXXXine can be just that little bit wilder than they would have been otherwise. And that’s fun."

"So often in films there are two ways a female can be portrayed: either innocent and virginal or the complete opposite. You never have the middle ground, and I was really keen to portray a realistic, honest approach of who I think a young woman would be in this situation – strong and independent."

"In the beginning of my career, I was just happy to be in a movie. ‘I'll just do whatever you give me. I'll be there.’ As time has progressed, I view myself as more valuable, with more to give than just being in a movie. Working with Ti [West] and being involved from the start has shown me I can have agency over the creative process. A meaningful voice can go beyond acting—screenwriting, producing, having input—and that has become clearer. It's about more than being happy to be here; it's about making great cinema."

"Mia is a unicorn of an actress. It’s not like you could ever say, ‘We need a Mia Goth type,’ because there is no type. There’s just Mia."

"I see Elizabeth as a butterfly or a moth. She’s fluttering and trying to find her place in this world."

"You have to be fierce as an actor. It’s not the actor’s job to be interesting; that’s the script’s job. It’s our job to be truthful and brave."

"Acting is the only thing I do, the only thing I know. It’s a marathon for me. There is a lot of thought that goes into the choices I make as an actor and the films I decide to do. It’s important to fill up your life with varied experiences, then return to set, a sacred place to release and reveal. Each time I’m cast, it feels like a miracle, and I prepare as if it might be my last role—an energy that makes me work harder and be more present on set."

"I would wake up very early, put my phone on a timer for maybe an hour at a time, and write in the style of a stream of consciousness, rather than script form, because I found that to be an obstacle in me getting my ideas down. I would write as Pearl, as me … but Pearl is me. I mean, all my characters are me, turned up or turned down. It’s all me exploring different facets of myself."

"I saw acting as a way to get out of the situation I was in. That’s really what made me work as hard as I did. It was my driving force. ‘If this doesn’t work, then I’m going to go back to that, and I can’t let that be. So this needs to work. There’s no plan B. I have to do whatever it takes to make this scene good, to make sure that I’m good enough as an actor."

"She's better on stage, from a distance. On a screen, close up, she makes you want to dive for cover."

"The most memorable thing I did in that film, I believe, was my screaming. In almost all my movies since, I've been called upon to scream. I don't know if it's by chance, but I would like to think that I'm not hired for that talent alone."

"Stardom is all hard work, aspirins and purgatives."

"She looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth—or anywhere else."

"There is no such thing as a person that nothing has happened to, and each person's story is as different as his fingerprints."

"I remember another solo trip, on the Berengaria, sailing from New York to Southampton. It was during Prohibition, and two acquaintances were aboard, fellows who were connected with a museum. I had brought a bottle of Scotch with me, and I used it to tempt them to talk. Like a sort of truth serum. Well, one of these fellows confided in me that he liked to wear a tiger-skin belt next to his skin — inside out, with the fur next to him. Facts like that make one feel blue-eyed and normal."

"The real Simon Pure."

"All policy’s allowed in war and love."

"“If I publish volume two I’ll have to either be dead or prepared to leave the country,”"

"People told me not to go on the internet because I’m angry enough already"

"There are two sides to every question. There are two sides to every —what is termed the ' back ' and the ' front of the house,' or more generally known as ' before and behind the footlights '—and if of late years both sides of the curtain have been made familiar to the public gaze, it is not because it is the fashion to court observation, but on account of a passionate national curiosity to know the truth."

"... for sheer beauty, the , to my mind, between and , are infinitely more exquisite, with alternating well-watered s and and in the distance, than any part of ."

"... People still talk of Gertrude Kingston's as a piece of acting to treasure in the memory; and readers of who considered it contained a too great monotony of sorrow to be effective on the stage, found themselves, to their astonishment, almost unendurably moved."

"Yeah, I love fashion. Love it, love it, love it. I love clothes. I’m a vegan, so I’m really interested now in sustainability and fashion being sustainable. I’m very kind of new to the veganism kind of fashion side, I’ve been a vegan for god… 15 years now or so. I was a vegan before it was cool to be vegan. Old school, you know?"

"For 11 years they must have had intercourse but never complete[ly], but in the air raid, in the heat of the terror, I was created."

"[On mortality] If you are a Jew, and I am, it is not a subject that is ever far away. The Holocaust, in which I lost no one I knew, scarred me forever. And my life is informed by knowledge of it. I'm a jolly little soul but at the back of the jollity there is a knowledge of despair."

"[On the TV series Miriam's Big Fat Adventure] I've always been fat and you're not supposed to be fat, so my built-in rebellion starts with the very flesh that I inhabit."

"I was in my late twenties when I told my mother. [...] I spoke to her about an affair with a woman and three days later she had this stroke."

"Nobody thinks they've had the career they deserve. And I want to be as important as Judi and Maggie and all the others, you know. And I think I'm bloody good — but nobody else agrees with me."

"I now regret it because it caused the person I loved the most pain she could not bear. I should have been aware that to tell her was very wrong. It also hurts me that she was not then able to live to see my success."

"The umbilical cord was never completely cut, metaphorically speaking, so I still feel massively connected to them long after their deaths. But I also happen to think that being an only child is inevitably damaging in some way because it too intensely focuses you on your parents and deprives young people of the socialising they must experience in order to fruit properly. I was terribly anxious to make friends; and I'm still needing people rather more than I should be, even at this advanced age."

"I was groped by my childhood hero. I watched soap operas religiously and loved one well-known soap star, but he touched me up during my first ever rep job. He stroked my bum in the canteen queue and went, "Mmm, nice arse." The next day, I saw him in the corridor and wanted to bolt. Instead, I grabbed his crotch, and said, "Mmm, nice bollocks." He never spoke to me again. Quite awkward because we were in a play together."

"My first TV job asked me shave my legs and I refused. The cameras all zoomed in on my leg hairs and the 40-strong male crew treated me to a rendition of "Gillette, the best a man can get". I unfortunately bumped into Jim Davidson in the corridor and he shouted "Not only has she got hairy legs, she's wearing men's shoes!” as he pointed at my Doc Martens."

"[I]t shot this two-day rape scene with a young actress and then they cut it. [...] I was in favour of them never having that rape scene but the fact she had to go through that and then the director went: "Actually I have decided I will cut it", as if he was the big hero. This kind of thing has to stop. But unfortunately you look at Netflix and you see the amount of violence against women in a lot of shows and you see we still have a long way to go."

"In terms of actions, diet is a main thing for me, it's something I can control. I eat mostly vegan, probably like 95 per cent plus. … I've tried to consume less and support more sustainable businesses. … The biggest thing is probably a mindset shift, pushing against the narrative that we need to buy more, do more, and moving out of a mindset of waste."

"As the generalization goes about the art industry, people can be really challenging and thought-provoking in their thinking and questioning the status quo, and it’s really important that the status quo can be questioned and that there are people doing that."

"Glynis has light brown hair, blue eyes, and is five feet four inches in height. Dancing is still of great interest to her and is her favourite recreation, coupled with the collecting of good syncopated numbers: Glenn Miller's In the Mood is her favourite. Her favourite classical composers are Grieg, Mozart and Debussy. Riding, tennis and ice skating are her sports, and her ideal holiday is one spent in a mountain resort where there is plenty of night-life. Her favourite reading is autobiographies, preferably those of celebrities she knows personally."

"Glynis Johns is already a professional actress. She got her chance two years ago when the child principal of a children's play fell ill and she took over the part without a rehearsal. Last year she made a hit in the emotional child's part in Elmer Rice's "Judgement Day," and her naturalness in putting over the temperamental storms of Midge Carne puts her high up in rank of child character actresses. Several London critics have compared her to Bonita Granville. She has an intelligent little face which has character without prettiness and, properly handled, should do interesting work."

"Glynis’s CV stands up strongly when compared to fellow actors of her generation and younger like Angela Lansbury, Judi Dench, Joan Collins and Maggie Smith, who all received Damehoods – so it would be nice if the government could make the same gesture for her as she turns 100."

"I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine. I swam like a porpoise."

"In classical theatre in Europe, everybody plays all kinds of parts. Juliets go on to play the Nurses; they don't want to play Juliet again. I think we've got to remember to grab onto our perks, whatever is the good thing about each age. Each stage of life should be a progression."

"I always said that 'Send In The Clowns' was the best gift I was ever given. But I've always thought before I decide I don't want to do theater anymore, I'd like to have a vehicle that gave me the scope to do something beautiful. Maybe this is it."

"Of course, she came across as supremely confident, but in private she suffered quite crippling stage fright that she never really got over – only managed – so that makes her career even more remarkable."

"I like being a woman, and it may be small‐minded of me, but I also like being given flowers, having the door opened for me, being cherished by a man. And a woman should look after a man, mother him. It's give and take. It evens out. I'm a complete romantic – and very happy to be one."

"I'd tread very softly in that area. Very softly. I certainly wouldn't rush into anything again, and I'd have to have an awful lot in common with anyone I'd consider marrying next time. Why so many marriages? It was absolute conservatism on my part. I was brought up to feel that if you wanted to have an affair with a man, well, you married him. I have friends who, if they'd followed that rule, would have collected an awful lot of pieces of paper by now."

"For me, most relationships with men have been like pregnancies – they last only nine months. One of my marriages lated only three months. It wasn't a marriage at all but a serious mistake."

"Relatives cannot help you in the studios. You stand or fall by your own efforts. My father and I have only ever worked in one picture together – that was Halfway House – and the producer was casting a father and daughter. Perhaps it was natural that he chose us, but my father did not get me that job, neither did I get him his."

"I would sooner play in a good British picture than in the majority of American pictures I have seen."