Quotes from Fiona Shaw

I once saw my mother playing Mary Magdalene in a parish event. But she had to put the role aside in order to go and front the choir who were singing at the same occasion. She left the stage halfway through the Crucifixion.

A lot of Irish people perform. They perform in drawing rooms. They sing songs and they play piano.

Honestly, I get more recognized for 'Three Men and a Little Lady' than 'Harry Potter'.

There once was a demographic survey done to determine if money was connected to happiness and Ireland was the only place where this did not turn out to be true.

A relationship is sent by God and accident.

Now I have begun to get interested in films and I just hope that people start becoming interested in me to do more films.

I can hardly decide what plays I should be in.

People who are good at film have a relationship with the camera.

I had a ball doing Harry Potter.

I find it incredibly tedious, hate that it murders itself with its own conservative pomposity.

And by endlessly sanitizing our feelings, we actually feed a disgruntled nation.

One moment cannot be the most important.

There was no professional theater in Cork, but still I did a lot of performing.

Theater dates very quickly.

Theater is dangerously open to repetition. It's exciting when you hit on a new way.

I take the theater seriously in that I loathe it, I'm bored by it.

I loathe bad theater and most theatre is very bad because it's repetitious, unexciting and, dangerously, it is sometimes praised for those things.

Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time.

I think America becomes more disgruntled by going to the movies and having an endlessly good time at them.

To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.

Also, an area that interests me - and it will probably take years to state what I mean - is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

There is a great relief in experiencing the worst vicariously.

The energy released by it is enormous and it becomes quite addictive, the power between the audience and the actor.

The word democracy has no meaning. Duty has gone. Only rights remain.