From a very young age I'd learned to put on a brave face because of losing my mum. I'd always make jokes if anybody tried to throw sympathy at me.Collection: Sympathy
With trans people, I just think you can't help the way you are born, though. You know, it's DNA, it's genetics. I'm just glad people can do things about their own happiness. I think this thought process that they're trying to wipe out women is a bit ridiculous - it's a minority of people.Collection: Women
I was a very lame skinhead. I had to be in by 8:30 P. M., so I used to pretend that I had a baby sister I had to go home and baby-sit.Collection: Home
If we want equality, we shouldn't then expect to be praised just because we're doing a certain job. That's not equality.Collection: Equality
'Walking and Talking' is my love letter to books, '70s television, music and friendship.Collection: Friendship
'Walking and Talking' is my autobiography. It's best to do it that way, rather than spend months writing a book that then ends up in the bargain bucket with all the other idiots' autobiographies.Collection: Best
I look at myself in the mirror and think I'm gorgeous.
It's good to try new things when you're a groovy oldie.
What's important to me is that the ego hasn't taken over.
I am always being told off for using bad language but it's sort of lovely really, because it makes me think of my lovely dad who was constantly shouting at me for bad language.
I'm totally happy with my big, fat self.
I'm quite a cantankerous soul. People have this impression that I have a happy disposition. But I'm dark and cynical underneath.
People would think I wouldn't like Noel Coward. I think he was the original punk in a lot of ways. You know. Saucy. Doing his own thing.
I was always playing very stupid people, or the fat mate of the main girl.
Having been a fan of Frantic Assembly for many years I'm really looking forward to working with them as a co-director as it's something I've not done before.
I have always believed that women should be allowed to do what they want to do.
I came on to Twitter in my 50s and I sort of think that was perfect. I am just a ranting old lady really and I like it.
When 'Nil By Mouth' was released, people thought that's what we were actually like, that they'd put me and Ray in front of the cameras and filmed what came out. No acting involved.
Growing up in the '70s, if you were a girl or woman, a man could tell you what to do - if you were sitting on the bus: 'Get up,' 'Move,' whatever. You did what you were told.
I went through moody broody... well, I met one person and I thought 'if I am going to have a child with anybody it is going to be with this guy. Anyway it didn't happen because he had a girlfriend and I tried not to sleep with people if they had girlfriends.
The thing with me is that I'm quite arrogant.
I've got faith in my own talent and I always have.
But the more successful I became as an actor, the less control I had. I became more of a puppet, really. It certainly felt like that, at least.
I hate writing.
I had two older brothers who kept dirty mags under their mattresses. They didn't know I knew.
I'm quite a solitary person. I like being on my own.
I can smell trouble miles away.
Because I didn't have a Mum - she died when I was a baby - my Dad was told by people in authority that it was best for me to go to a convent school.
I had this laddish way about me, with my deep voice and telling jokes all the time; I was Burkey, the little fella in a skirt.
I didn't really feel like a girly girl. I didn't want to wear boob tubes and flared trousers and disco clothes. Then when punk came along it was like, 'Oh great, I can wear ripped jeans and manky t-shirts and flat caps.' It was just perfect timing for me.
I'm getting really fed up with the way that girls and women get portrayed a lot of the time.
I do what I wanna do and I see who I wanna see. And when you get into your forties, it's like being a teenager again, really. Everyone else in their forties thinks they can chat to you.
Audiences don't need to be patronized by being shown in period things how much people smoked.
I don't go there any more. I think I've done my time at the Red Lion.
I fell out of love with acting and in love with directing.
It bloody annoys me when people forget that we're actors. Just because we tend to appear in things with our own accents, saying dialogue that comes naturally to us, people think we're just being ourselves.
I didn't want to go anywhere because I hated being a woman during my menopause. I was like 'why am I a woman?' I couldn't bear it.
I love stay-at-home dads. I think that is so brilliant. If I knew in my 20s you could... meet someone and have kids and he would be happy to be the one the bringing up the children maybe I would have done it.
It can be seen as being quite selfish, but I'm very happy to be selfish.
I used to be terribly aggressive in my twenties.
I'd always been dead against therapy. I didn't think you needed to pay someone to talk about yourself.
I'm very much a person who walks on egg shells.
When I'm on me island, I want to dance.
I needed a check-up from the neck up.
I want to understand rites of passage I've never experienced, like motherhood.
I'm a beautiful person, I know I am.
I had that C.difficile hospital bug that everyone is going on about. It was an experience. There's not much they can do. They just let you get on with it. It's a breakdown of the whole immune system.
I get very excited by these hoity-toity directors with their bells and whistles, but I find simple storytelling done really well just as exciting.
Your average director will be content with something that comes across as truthful, but we know, as fellow actors, that that's not great for a performer. They have to feel that what they're conveying is honest.
It's very nice to be greeted in the street and all that, but I actually don't care what other people think of me.