Helen Mirren Quotes - Page 7

I have done film, television and theatre - all at a pretty substantial level - I don't think it's possible for American actors to do that.

I certainly think that he [Alan Rickman] was a kind of actor who needed to grow into his maturity to realize the potential, the huge potential that he had.

You know, he [Alan Rickman] played these very reserved, sometimes-cold, sometimes-threatening characters on the screen, but the reality of the man was incredible warmth and humor and generosity and wicked fun.

People with Parkinson's are not some weird people on the edge of human experience.

People often ask me whether I prefer theater or film, and the answer is that I prefer the one I'm not doing: The grass is always greener.

Film is a wonderful thing and it can be so many different things. I don't want to turn my back on any of the different ways movies can be. I love the movies. I love going to the films. I like very serious films, I love foreign films, and I love big, fun movies - as long as they're well made and they've got good scripts. That's the most important thing.

When you do a voice in an animated film, you don't see the finished product at all. You're not animating. You're not doing the voice on the finished product. You're doing the voice long before.

[Washington is a] very gossipy little village of people all going to the same bars . . . all watching each other having affairs with each other

The great marriages are partnerships. It can't be a great marriage without being a partnership.

I have no maternal instinct whatsoever. Motherhood holds no interest for me.

I don't get to play the same role over and over in different movies. The roles that I get to play are quite varied, which is great.

I believe kids shouldn't be taught Shakespeare. They should experience it first by seeing a great production.

I have to say, without sounding like a total tosser, that everything I've learned in life, and that has taken me out of my natural interior life, has been with men. They exposed me to things that I wasn't aware of. I learned from all the guys.

I am in a fabulously lucky position in that I get to wear beautiful, beautiful gowns for functions, which I can then give back. That way, they're not sitting in my wardrobe with me looking at them and feeling guilty. I love that, and I think when people have a fabulous function to go to, I'd recommend renting.

I don't share lots of the phobias that horror movies tap into. I don't mind spiders or snakes or darkness.

I love photography and I love the art of photography. So when I'm working with high-level art photographers, I give them artistic freedom because I want that for myself when it's my turn to do my work and I never try and control it or say I'll only do this or I want it like that.

My parents believed in education and economic security, and I thank them for it. Because I think that's part of what's made my life stable. It was instilled in me. You have to be able to pay your bills. You do not get into debt. And I never have been.

The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.

There's a scary moment when you realise you're no longer the youngest person in the room. Especially if you've been a successful young person. That's followed, of course, by the realisation that you're actually the oldest person in the room.

I knew I wanted to engage in the world of the imagination, but it was not economically feasible for me to study acting, so I went to a teachers' training college.

The timing of comedy is so difficult. You've got to leave room for a laugh, you don't want to kill the laugh, but on film, you can't just suddenly stop for a laugh and then carry on. So, I think it's a real art form, comedy on film.

The French always seemed to be so chic. The food was better, the clothes were better, the makeup was better, the hair was better. Everything was better in France.

It seems to me that the years between eighteen and twenty-eight are the hardest, psychologically .

I'm not strong-willed actually. I'm a complete pushover. I love to be told what to do.

Ill-informed intuition is fantastic - it's what great art is. So really old painters or writers or actors are brilliant, because they've finally reached the point when they can let go of al technique.