Geraldine James
The secret to a happy marriage is friendship and laughter. There's no alternative.Collection: Friendship
I think French hotels are generally pretty awful - lumpy beds, often not terribly clean and just uncomfortable - but usually the food is fantastic.Collection: Food
Jo and I have a marriage based on friendship, which means hopefully you can survive. I'm so glad we have.Collection: Friendship
Alcohol in families is often kept secret. There's a sense of shame.
I'd love to do more Shakespeare but Shakespeare didn't write parts for older women.
My mother was an alcoholic, in and out of hospital my entire childhood. My father, a doctor, divorced her when I was 14. My brother and sister and I had no one to turn to, and we never spoke about it.
I'm cast for my acting, which is fortunate because when you're one of the pretty young things it can be difficult.
I've done a few jobs where there's a daughter, there's often a father who's positive and then there's a quite negative mother. I'm very interested in why so many of those come up.
I don't believe anybody is just an evil cow.
As a woman growing older I've gone through that process of suddenly realising I'm invisible in the world, having not been invisible when I was young.
I don't suffer depression because I don't worry about what's past. But anxiety is about the future and I do worry about that. I do fret a bit.
I'm not one of those actors who can complain that work's thinned out since I've got older.
I remember getting out of bed at night and sitting on the stairs listening to my parents arguing and wishing I had the courage to ask them to stop.
Jo and I tried for a second baby, but it didn't happen. The doctors - silly idiots - didn't take the problem seriously and kept giving us contradictory advice: 'Drink more milk.' 'Don't drink any milk.'
Daddy had never wanted me to be an actress, so it was wonderful that he saw my success in 'The Jewel In the Crown.'
You have to take knocks as an actor, and my parents definitely gave me fight. I'm very driven, like my father, who was a very successful doctor.
Band Of Gold' nearly did me in. We had 16 weeks of night shoots and I was never getting home to London and my husband Jo.
I would love to have had more children, but it's not a huge regret when the child I have is so completely fantastic.
It was an extraordinary experience, filming in India.
When my parents were going, 'Oh God, are you going to be an actress?' I decided I'd give it my best shot until I was 30, and as I hit 30 it all started taking off, just in the nick of time.
I had difficulties getting into telly, because people say that if you've been in the theatre you'll shout, but then I did telly and I didn't shout.
As a woman, sadly, you go from the girl to the love interest to the wife to the mistress to the mother to the granny - and so the stereotype goes on.
I went to a terrifying boarding school and everyone was a brilliant singer or musician or artist, and I wasn't good at any of those things, so I became the school clown. Someone spotted me, cast me as the Artful Dodger in a play and that was it.
It's fine to be an older man in my business, but not an older woman. I think of the 'Lord of the Rings' films, which had four or five leading men who were over 60 and the oldest woman was Cate Blanchett.
My daughter always came first and I got used to my agent saying, when I turned down this or that project because of her, 'Oh yes, of course' rather glumly. It was all about priorities.
I enjoy fringe theatre because you get a real sense of collaboration with the audience which you often don't get in the West End where, on occasions, one has been made uncomfortably aware of people dozing off.
It's funny the way things often work out for the best.
As with Shakespeare, we keep revisiting Chekhov.
For some reason in England, the word 'Chekhovian' is associated with drifting about with a parasol, a lot of weeping, and drinking tea from a samovar. But it's about real people - it's about family relationships and the way people want to be recognised for who they are.
David Fincher is an actor's director.
I think I may have got the part in 'Dragon Tattoo' because of 'Little Britain.'
I've become much fitter as I've got older, funnily enough.
The good thing about buying things online is that you can send them back.
I've never played a police person before 'Black Work,' and certainly had never worn a uniform.
To be asked to do something quite unusual keeps you going.
If you're asked constantly to do something extremely dull, you don't have to commit any imaginative power.
We can't all play Marie Antoinette all of the time.
That's what I enjoy: the ensemble, being in a company, being part of something.
I knew nothing about India before 'Gandhi.' It seemed quite sort of frightening the place where hippies used to go in the '60s.
In India, time is of a completely different nature. People there think 'So what?' about our compulsions. A cup of tea is only a cup of tea.
My own sister has always been apparently more successful socially. I was much more the serious one. While she was out shopping for clothes, I was more inclined to be staying in, playing the piano.
I'm stopped more regularly about 'Utopia' than almost anything I've ever done. People will come up and say 'you were in 'Utopia,' why was there no more of it?' I have no idea. People loved that show. I loved that show. I adored doing that. I thought it was miraculous.
Sometimes you do a job and you think, oh golly, that's enough isn't it?
Because British actors hold Shakespeare in such great reverence, we tend to go for the word, which tends to make things very intellectual.
Us actresses, we all want to look like wonderful princesses and be sweet and lovely. And it's very difficult to walk out and risk 1,100 people hating you. But it's also infinitely more interesting.
I found out when I was very young that I could make people laugh. I think I was a dreadful showoff.
Shakespeare writes such wonderful parts for women, parts that work so well today. I think he really liked women.
I try to only do jobs I don't know how to do.
I don't like doing what I've already done. But there's a lot of different kinds of characters that I'd like to play. More comedy, more classical theatre, more European theatre, more movies. I'd love to play a character close to myself in a film... because then it's about revealing, rather than about putting on a character.
Very early on there were the girls who were good at singing, at the arts, or mathematics or languages, and I wasn't good at anything. I didn't shine.