I've done a lot of costume drama and theatre - the National Theatre and In fact, most of my work at the theatre, at the National Theatre anyway, was period.

I hate that people think going to the theatre is a special occasion. I wish people would treat it as normally as going to the cinema.

I love silence.

Being a secretary was considered a very good job in those days.

I've made six films since I made Secrets and Lies but I still live in London and I'd love to do theater.

People say to me that I can't be nervous because I've had such a wealth of experience, but I tell them that I have never done this particular part before.

I've never done a big studio film, I've only ever done little ones.

I knew Secrets and Lies was a great film, but I didn't expect it to get the attention it did because none of his other films had and I thought they were just as good.

Maybe wanting to retire is my ambition.

Anything where people have to work together makes me cry.

I've done a lot of costume drama and theatre - the National Theatre and In fact, most of my work at the theatre, at the National Theatre anyway, was period.

Everyone the world over talks about British actors and British talent and I think that's because we were trained - until now - in theatre.

I always considered myself very successful even before the success of Secrets and Lies.

I think behind closed doors people behave differently no matter what period we're looking at, because people have to stand up straight in public but can slouch behind closed doors - can you imagine wearing those corsets?

I always think 12 times before saying anything.

It's a real leveller, you know, to do theatre at least once every two years.

In fact at home I sometimes like to be quiet and hear the sounds of the world outside.

When I left drama school, there were dozens of rep theatres you could apply to where you got a good training.

Before every performance, I think I am about to keel over.

It's the same as any role and I find that you can't lump characters together; because they all have different life experiences, different reasons for being the way they are.

I think people often confuse success with fame and stardom.

The strange thing is that since I've been offered lots of films I think that maybe they think that I've sold out to Hollywood. Which is not the case if anybody's listening.

Even if I hadn't have been nominated for an Oscar, to have won the Golden Glove was just fantastic.

The academy awards in England; it's a classy affair as well.

I like the enthusiasm but not the insincerity of Los Angeles.

I did radio back in the era when we did radio drama.

By obtaining a sense of its place in the unfolding drama of life, set in an ecological theatre, so we can understand why it has become one of the leading players.

I had an amazing experience working with great people. I had a great family, a typical family with drama in certain areas, and that's pretty much everywhere in everyone's life.

Comedy is so hard; it's so much harder than drama. The pacing of it, the energy of it.

I was always a drama queen. I remember playing in the kitchen, trying to get my mom to think I was dead and call the police. When she didn't, I would cry. I was always theatrical. I don't think any of my relatives are surprised.

You have to go to the ultimate situation in drama.

Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a related whole by an energy distinct from that which evoked them.

The drama may be called that part of theatrical art which lends itself most readily to intellectual discussion: what is left is theater.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

For me, football is just a game, not a drama.

The more commercial work that is happening, the more people are operating cameras and are setting up studio lights, the greater the opportunity for drama production to happen.

I'm doing music, and we both want to do some drama.

Culture clash is terrific drama.

I want to do drama, light comedy, the whole range.

We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dreamlife.

I always feel like an interloper when I do serious drama. It's my own paranoia.

Michigan is two radically different places - the North and the South which makes for good drama and contrast.

When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

I didn't get along with Lindsay Lohan on 'Confessions Of A Teenage Drama Queen', but you have to consider that we were 16-year-old girls. I haven't seen Lindsay since then, but I imagine she's grown and become a different person. I know I have.

A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

The Russian drama began at the end of 1991, when the Soviet Union mercifully ended. Russia and 14 other new countries emerged from the ruins of the Soviet Union. Every one of those 15 new states faced a profound historical, economic, financial, social and political challenge.

A drama critic is a person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he meant.

When you're young you have no worries, no drama, only your imagination. It's the best!