I trained as a designer, so I'm always terribly keen about what I'm going to look like.

I would like to work with Jack Nicholson, before it's too late.

My husband was actually very keen that I would become a Bond girl.

The theater is the thing I love doing most.

I love being part of a company, and telling a story.

Because, you know, I can't work a bicycle pump.

It was good to learn so early. They're not going to be kind to you. You have to do it and get on, and then gulp down and get better.

I think you've got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other.

I work out the other bits, too, but I need to know what I look like, very early on. And then it's like a template; I'll fill that person out. If I get that out of the way, then I'm all right.

Sometimes nudity is gratuitous. We just live in a society where everything goes.

I don't think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it.

It's incredibly moving to hear some of our greatest actors performing Shakespeare.

Since Michael died I think I've worked constantly. Friends and colleagues are very sustaining. They're the people who get you through it... It's no good to be on your own.

I've figured out what to do so far, but it's always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting - whoosh! in your face. That's why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.

It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it.

Some things you know about, you know what the ingredients are - maybe not all of them. But it's up to you to put in the amount. It's up to the director to nag you until you get it right.

It actually was a complete departure having a woman playing M. I didn't realize at the time that it would be so noticed.

I was in Yorkshire. We were a family of five and I used to be sent sometimes to get the rations for the week and I was easily able to carry them back. It was like one egg and a tiny bit of tea.

Michael died five years ago this January, and the first thing that really struck me about the script was the part about her peeling off from the funeral and just getting into a rowboat and having a real kind of cry where nobody was.

In contrast, the control you have in a theatre is very attractive to me.

I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not employed. That's why, you know, I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not going to be cast again.

Seriously, though, I think I never ceased to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love - I never got over that.

I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination.

The more I do, the more frightened I get. But that is essential. Otherwise why would I go on doing it?

And then it was working with Bob Hoskins, who I had never worked with before - except radio. It was like being given a wonderful meal - full of the things you love most.

The Lord Chamberlin was censoring scripts when I first came into the theater.

I am so thrilled to be nominated for something I loved working on every single day.

People think you know beforehand when you win an Oscar - I can assure you you don't.

It is true that there are few plays of Shakespeare that I haven't done.

I trained as a designer, so I'm always terribly keen about what I'm going to look like.

I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.

Anything that we can do to improve the lives of elderly people is welcome so far as I am concerned.

Frankly, I never had any intense desire to go to India. I know that sounds a bit strange, but it just never was someplace I had a burning desire to visit.

I don't think that care homes are all rotten old places that ought to be shut down.

I need to learn every day.

I wanted to be a set designer when I was young.

I would hate people to think bossy is all I can do.

I've always loved painting, although I never show anyone what I've done. Mainly because I don't do it well. But it's like a form of visual diary for me. A way of fixing things in my mind.

There are very few things that surprise me.

Work certainly does help fill a void.

The difficulty with any sort of esteem is that more is expected of you.

Sometimes nudity is gratuitous. We just live in a society where everything goes.

Every time I see a piano, I have this urge to play it.

Every building is a prototype. No two are alike.

When you've got a great business going, you go open another and take the risk of losing the whole thing. It's fun!

You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them.

We're broke. It's never a fun message to deliver.

I don't curl my hair. In fact, I don't know how to.

It's obviously a lot harder to try and be a good guy than it is to be a bad guy. The world is a fundamentally evil place, it seems like. So in order to be a good person, you have to fight temptation and vice.