Quotes from Helen McCrory

A script is only as good as the director who's making it.

My own parents were very un-neurotic, so I never thought that I had to change enormously in order to become a parent.

In the area we live, there's a large show of children who run from one house to another house to another house. That's lovely because it means all the children play together, and all the adults get to sit around and have coffees and read the papers or go to the park.

The benefits of feminism for someone like my husband are fantastic. He can stay at home with the kids, he can take them to a park, he does the school run.

What really matters to me is what my peers think.

I can sleep anywhere! I can come off stage during the interval of a play, lie down for four minutes then wake up feeling better.

There are a lot of little lessons that can be taught around the home without sitting a child down and boring them to death with your philosophy of life!

Appallingly, I hadn't thought about it one jot. I never daydreamed as a little girl of getting married and having children. I was as surprised to discover I was getting married as I was to discover I was up the duff.

I'm a very positive person. My grandmother taught me that happiness is both a skill and a decision, and you are responsible for the outcome.

I've become more confident as I have got older. I care less what others think.

I love dressing up. But I'm very low-maintenance; the week before an event, I'll choose something as quickly as possible and that's that. If I can do my own hair and make-up, even better. I like it to be fun.

A perfect weekend in London has to start on Friday night, by going to the theatre, the Donmar or the National. It's a cliche for an actor, but I enjoy going as much as possible.

I think change is good because it teaches you that it's nothing to be frightened of.

I feel as though my life is bathed in golden sunlight. And the really wonderful thing is that I know it.

I had a great start in television; the first thing I did was an episode of 'Performance' called 'The Entertainer' with Michael Gambon playing Archie Rice.

What interests me about life most is people, and the why of the world. That's what theatre looks at: it examines life, and gives it a cohesiveness that life doesn't have.

I used to say that theatre was my favourite thing. But the more I do film, the more I appreciate it.

I love theatre because it's just me and the audience. It's the litmus test in acting, to be able to sustain a performance over one, two or three hours.

I was very lucky. I left college, and Richard Eyre was in charge of the National Theatre. I was offered the lead in 'The Seagull' with no experience and went on to do five plays there.

Every time, at any point of my life, I think now is always the best age to be.

Actually, I'm looking forward to being 50. Because to me, that's when a woman is at the pinnacle of her femininity and her womanhood.

When I was 14, I told my mother I intended to be in the House of Commons in the morning, in court in the afternoon and on stage in the evening. She realised then a fantasist had been born.

I've often sat down with people talking about a film I've been in, and they haven't realised I was in it.

Literature is reflecting what is happening in life. More and more women are having relationships with younger men. It's partly that women are not losing their figures now.