Everything we say signifies; everything counts, that we put out into the world. It impacts on kids, it impacts on the zeitgeist of the time.

The biggest lesson I learned in my career was to ask other people what they make because the men usually make more than you do. And it's good to know. You're not allowed to ask...but it's good to ask.

I love acting, of course, but being with my husband and my children always brought me the greatest joy and happiness in life.

I get a trickling few scripts that I'm lucky enough that some of them are great. I don't get loads of scripts.

You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent... Or that you're boring and they're going to find out that you don't know what you're doing.

How do I do that preparation [for film]? Just an immersion. I have a musician's, I guess, ear for the sound of the voice but it's also important to me, in the case of [playing] someone who is controversial, to get the outlines of the character right because how they present themselves to the world has a great deal to do with how people feel about them.

And she [Margaret Thatcher] also had a sort of a way, like a railroad train, of going, taking a breath and starting quite quietly and making a point in a way that you don't really know that this point is going to be made through several examples, and there will be not be a break in the speaking voice at any point.