Eileen Atkins

My very first memory of being alive is being tossed in the air by my father and laughing and knowing, really knowing, that his was absolute joy.

I believe I was put on this planet to act, and it's given me huge fulfilment. I feel I've realised my destiny, and I've had a very, very good time doing it.

One of the things I love about Helena Bonham Carter is that she is ravishing, but she does as much as she can to play it down and look funny. She doesn't let her looks get in the way. I hugely respect that.

I have never been able to bear people who are obsessed with beauty.

My looks were good enough for what I needed in every possible way but not so much to be a burden.

It's extraordinary to hear waves of laughter after you've been playing something, night after night, to nothing. That's why I'm still hooked on acting: the terror of the possibility of things going wrong, the thrill when they go right, and the joy of the company.

I don't believe in remaking television series. I should never have agreed to reviving 'Upstairs Downstairs' because my heart wasn't in it, but part of me did think about my pension.

People assume I'm posh because I'm one of the acting dames. I grew up in Tottenham and didn't used to speak like I do now.

Acting is not in the blood. My parents weren't actors, but I imagine that if you've been brought up with actors, you have a lovely time at home and just want that to carry on.

I imagine I'll retire mid-performance. I'll say, 'Sorry, everyone, I can't do this anymore. I must have suddenly aged.' Then I'll walk off. Yes, I'm sure that's how.

The idea of an actor is that you should be able to play anything.

It's no use ignoring looks or charm if you're going into the theatre.

I'd hardly seen any movies when I was 19 and left drama school.

When I think of all the Hamlets I've seen, there's been a load of different styles, some marvellous. You like the Hamlet you saw when you were the right age to think you could be Hamlet.

Losing friends is the worst thing about getting older.

My grammar school caught on to the fact that the reason I was falling asleep in class was that I was doing working men's clubs till 10 or 11 at nights. My mother was told I shouldn't do it anymore. Of course, I was bringing in money to the family, so nobody liked hearing that.

There seem to be two sorts of actors. Some people play themselves marvellously, and others, like me, rather like to become someone else.

I love dresses that just skim the body, that suggest what's underneath rather than display it.

I'm told I am over-choosy, and I shocked everybody by doing Jeffrey Archer. I did that to annoy everybody; sometimes, between Medea and Virginia Woolf, you can get punch-drunk.

Film was something I didn't really think about when I was young, because if you looked like me, you weren't a film star.

My parents felt so uncomfortable coming to the kind of theater I was in; they had nothing to say about it.

I think most British people who say they can do an American accent are so bad at it. I find it excruciating. I find it excruciating the other way around, too.

I'm rarely wrong.

Wheels come off? Get on with it. Cope. Survive.

On the street where I lived, they almost didn't know the word 'university,' and my mother was simply appalled when it was suggested to her that I was to go to a drama college.