I know there is something out there and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad.

Don't be defeatist, dear, it's very middle class.

I think there's always great tension because there never seems to be enough - there is always pressure. There's always pressure because there isn't enough time. There's never enough time for a movie, it seems to me. Never.

The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing. I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody. I wouldn't have liked that. Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?

I'm so moved to hear Celia Johnson again, so lovely.

It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.