I'm far, far, far from that. But of course, that's one of the joys of acting is that you can move up in the world, even if - you know, in the characters that you're playing, even if you don't.
Alan Rickman was such a terrific actor, and that was such a terrific character that he played. And it was a joy to be with him. We used to laugh together because we ran out of reaction shots. They were always - when everything had been done and the children were finished, they would turn the camera around and we'd have to do various reaction shots of amazement or sadness and things. We used to say we'd got to about number 200-and-something and we'd run out of knowing what to do when the camera came around on us. But he was a joy.
It was - it's always very nice to be somebody rather grand.
I think he [Leonardo DiCaprio] is a terrific actor. And I've - I've been rooting and voting for him since "Gilbert Grape." I thought he was so amazing in that one. He was a young man, really very young boy.
Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.
People think of you differently if you've been in their homes. They think they own you because they watched you while they were eating dinner, or they can turn you up or down, or even freeze you.
I find it very difficult to do anything on my own now because people recognize me. This has never happened to me before because I haven't really done television before. But I suppose if you're in people's rooms all the time, I don't know - I was thinking the other night with people like DiCaprio and, you know, those big stars and Cate Blanchett, and you just think how did they exist? It's so difficult. And I think now it's very intrusive because of these cellphones, you know, with cameras.
The thing is, often press people ask questions that are so personal that even your nearest and dearest wouldn't ask them.
Sort of what you do in drama school when asked to play something way out of your reach. Anyway, we used to laugh a lot about that. I used to say I'm not going to act old, Penelope. I'll just be myself.
My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.
There are responsibilities which are parental responsibilities and those are the types of things we prepare the next generation for, but no one tells you how to answer the kids' questions in the backseat of the car when they want to know what the world is for or where they came from or why any of this is happening.
I just did adore Daniel - Daniel Radcliffe, who I had worked with before "Harry Potter" and spent a long time telling all the producers they had to see him because I thought he was so terrific. And it's been sad thinking about it because of Alan Rickman.
I don't think films about elderly people have been made very much.
I'm hopeless - all I know is that time is going past so fast.
It's funny to be pigeonholed so late in life but there we are.
My kids are really learning everything from scratch. It's our job to be their tour guides and camp counselors and orientation people. That's a weird responsibility, especially in a world that feels as good as it feels bad.
I'm not my mother. And so I'm not raising my kids in the same way. I don't respond in the same way. We don't spend our days in the same way because I don't necessarily enjoy the same things she likes to do.
I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.
I'm so moved to hear Celia Johnson again, so lovely.
I think there's always great tension because there never seems to be enough - there is always pressure. There's always pressure because there isn't enough time. There's never enough time for a movie, it seems to me. Never.
The drama school was in Oxford - and it's funny to think of it, but in those days when I started out the University was nearly all male. And they certainly weren't mixed.
It made it feel impossible, quite honestly, because filming - you film come rain, come shine, come whatever. And it did rain a lot. And of course, that's what she must have gone through. Of course it rained; of course it was cold... But, you know, it really was quite hard to be out there in the rain.
I had no idea that that was around in the family anywhere. Maybe it never was. But - so they broke the way for me, if you know what I mean. I have no idea where I got the idea from to do what I do. But I think they - Ian and Alistair, my brothers kind of opened a lot of doors for me onto the world - you know, made it seem to be a very, very interesting place.
There were male colleges, and there were very few female colleges.
A lot of writing about being a mother is not so much writing about the kids themselves. They become placeholders for the shift that happens when you're suddenly in charge of other people.
