I just did adore Daniel - Daniel Radcliffe, who I had worked with before "Harry Potter" and spent a long time telling all the producers they had to see him because I thought he was so terrific. And it's been sad thinking about it because of Alan Rickman.

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.

It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see…I can only hope that’s correct, because there’s an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others.

Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.

I find it very difficult to do anything on my own now because people recognize me. This has never happened to me before because I haven't really done television before. But I suppose if you're in people's rooms all the time, I don't know - I was thinking the other night with people like DiCaprio and, you know, those big stars and Cate Blanchett, and you just think how did they exist? It's so difficult. And I think now it's very intrusive because of these cellphones, you know, with cameras.

I'm hopeless - all I know is that time is going past so fast.

We can't escape the shadow, so the best thing we can do is notice the light and be open to it.