When I'm meant to be standing in the wings, the only way to go is the ladies' toilets. It's the only time I've ever acted in the toilets.

Violence is never ever a choice that a man should make.

I like things that are funny - in everyday conversation, in incidents that you see, in watching TV or watching film. Comedy has always had an impact on my life.

I've met actors where you think, if only you could just clean up your act and get it together, people would want to work with you. Some people are so difficult, it's just not worth working with them.

As a child, I heard in my home doctors and ambulance men say, 'Mrs. Stewart, you must've done something to provoke him.' 'Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument.' Wrong. Wrong! My mother did nothing to provoke that - and even if she had, violence is never ever a choice that a man should make. Ever.

One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.

For seven years I did very little theatre, and I have to make up some time.