I'd love to have done more film, but you can't have everything.

An awful lot of actors shy away from the uglier aspects of the human condition. They want to be liked, which is a cop-out. You've got to go for it.

I only know how to play bad mums because they're the best parts.

I get tetchy with myself when I forget. I also get tetchy when directors ask you for take after take after take after take for no apparent reason. I've heard Maggie Smith gets tetchy for the same reason.

I'm an old bag for the most part on 'Game Of Thrones', so it's so lovely to be glamorous - as glamorous as you can be at my age!

The opportunity to be bizarre - I am bizarre, aren't I? - is just so wonderful, isn't it?

Television has taught me an economy of style I didn't have before. I feel it has done me nothing but good.

I'm in a position to do exactly what I want. I travel quite a lot. I read prodigiously. I go to the theater, to concerts. London is a wonderful city to live in.

Mostly what you remember and enjoy are the scenes you played with people. And quite often, they're the combative scenes!

I've played the Greek classics; I've played the English classics. I promise you, I'm not complacent, because I hope to be playing all sorts of stuff that I've never played before while the mind - and the body - still functions.

It was an extremely overdramatic play called 'Wild Decembers'. It was all about the Brontes, and they all, one after the other, died of tuberculosis. I remember taking every opportunity to cough over other people's lines.

If it were said that I didn't fulfil my potential as a mother and wife, I'd be heartbroken. But if it were said that I hadn't fulfilled my potential as an actress, I would understand the reasons why.

They do say that the profession gets increasingly difficult, but my career seems to have been inside out.

These days, it's perfectly normal to move between the theatre and television.

Classes were incredibly boring. I took to dreaming. They took to punishing me. I was always working off punishments for not doing what I was supposed to do.

I cry all the time. Remembrance Day in particular. In fact, anything to do with veterans makes me sob.

Tabloid newspapers are very rich and hold huge funds to fight claims.

It tends to be overlooked that many people are indirectly affected by thoughtless and cruel journalism.

I don't generally give interviews unless I have to promote a play and had sworn years ago, having been bitten once too often, never to be interviewed by a woman again.

I have always thought of myself as rather a happy person. Apart from a few knocks along the way, I consider myself to have been extremely lucky.

It's particularly exhausting because Medea is defined by her determination. The role is all about endeavour.

Most of the women in Greek tragedies have their fates predetermined. The gods dictate that such and such will happen to them, and everything they predict comes true. Not Medea.

'Medea' is an enormous challenge for an actor physically, mentally, emotionally. You have to dig very, very deep, and to work, your performance has to be very personal.

You hand the baton on, and that's why roles like 'Medea' resonate for years and years, as each new actor comes to it.