Glenda Jackson

If a woman is successful, then she's deemed to be the exception that proves the rule. If a woman fails, well, we're all failures. That kind of underlying approach to our gender doesn't seem to me to have changed an iota.

What interested me, was that as we age, those seemingly unbreakable barriers that define us, our gender, they begin to crack, to blur; they're not absolutes anymore.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

Our job is to unleash the play. It's not just about your character or interaction with the other characters. There's an energy in all good plays which you have to find. And that is part and parcel of ensuring that an audience gets what it's about.

My job is to see the world through the character's eyes.

No, I didn't think of myself as an idealist. I consider myself as a believer in what I regard as the Labour Party's basic principles, which have to do with equality and 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. You know, the golden rules.

The best teacher is an audience. The ideal performance is when that group of strangers sitting in the dark gets energy from the group in the light and sends energy back to us. When it really works, a perfect circle is formed.

My fear with 'Lear' was that I would not have the physical or vocal strength. But this play, it's all in your head. That was one of the really interesting things when we were rehearsing it: We were all exhausted because it was all up here.

You've got to sing like you don't need the money.

My money goes to my agent, then to my accountant and from him to the tax man.

When I was feeding myself by being a professional actress, I never got a good notice in the 'Evening Standard.' And when I changed direction and became a Labour MP, I was the wrong political party for the 'Evening Standard.'

I told them I wouldn't sign a blank cheque.