Rosemary Harris

Adrenaline is always shimmering around in a theater, which you don't get so much in normal life unless you're scared or something goes amiss.

Get your emotions out of the way in the rehearsals.

I always loved the sheer physical act of being onstage.

It's lovely to be acting with Lauren Bacall. We're been friends for a long time - since about 1956, since she met Jason Robards when he and I did 'The Disenchanted'.

But to me, Broadway has always had more a 'village' feeling than London's West End. The theaters here are clustered together, the staff and many people in the business know each other - it's like a little village all to itself, whereas in London everything is more spread out.

When I was younger I remember rushing back and cooking a meal for the family, and never thinking about having a nap between the shows!

I always say that I've grown little flaps on a stage and I've got these little gills that open, because on the stage I'm in my element and I'm like a fish that's come out when I'm on land, which is filming. I'm never quite as comfortable as I am on the stage.

I did a lot of stock before I even went to drama school. I sort of went in the back door of drama school and I had joined in a stock company to get my experience.

Yes, I can still see 'Arcadia' in my mind's eye, that beautiful Georgian room and the actors' moving through it. I loved that idea.

When I'm not working, I'm down in North Carolina and we have a rather large yard, so I'm usually struggling with vines and pulling things down. I get plenty of exercise in the garden.

All the London critics, including Kenneth Tynan and Harold Hobson, came down to Bristol to see 'The Crucible'.

When John, my husband, was alive, he had a strict timetable. We would get up at 7:30 every morning and go out to breakfast, and I'd have a little nap in the afternoon if I had a show to do at night.

If it's the theatre and the stage that really interests you, you should work on your voice, develop its range and flexibility and most important of all - projection!

I had a teacher/director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where I trained for a year, named Mary Duff, who taught me practically everything I know.

My sister Pam and I were raised on the North West Frontier of India, on the border with Afghanistan.

I've always wanted to be in a play by Tom Stoppard.

The Lion in Winter' was great fun.

You get terribly depressed if they're bad for you and if they're good then you start playing your reviews, emphasizing those things that the reviewer likes.

The Holocaust' was the most memorable experience filming because it was important and it wasn't entertainment. It was history. It was unbearably real at times. You forgot it was a film.