Quotes from Anne-Marie Duff

I didn't have a teen age at all. I didn't even look at boys, never mind... then suddenly it was like, 'Oh my god!' So I made up for a lot of lost time very quickly. It was kind of bonkers. Working hard, partying hard - but also experiencing life, you know.

I admire people who overcome obstacles or who have to commit - I've always really admired commitment, whether it be a commitment to living or a commitment to love. People who commit to a moment. People who are not somewhere else, but in the room with you.

I was quite shy. I used to write stories all the time, and I think that was a worry for my parents.

The first thing that attracts me to any script is the writing. If I find myself becoming lost in a good yarn, then I feel certain that others will, too.

I think American drama is at its best when it takes the domestic and makes it epic, like a Greek tragedy in the front room.

I think it helps to have a good old-fashioned trajectory, plodding along. Obviously one has an ego and it's really easy to have that ego tickled, but what helps me get through the night is if I concentrate on just quality of work so that I don't panic about my profile.

Healthy love, I always think, is... wanting the person you love to be more of themselves. And I think for a parent that's a challenge, because you have to let a baby spread its wings.

I only went along to youth theatre with a friend when I was young to try to make myself a bit more sociable. But the whole thing was quite sore; it really hurt me trying to get into drama school. It was a world I knew nothing about - it was very middle class; all that usual stuff. But I was young, determined, and I just went for it.

You can't worry too much about profile; otherwise, you become a different kind of actor, and that's not the kind of actor I want to be.

I didn't really inhabit myself until I was in my 30s. And motherhood is an epic event. You can't help but be altered by it - and it is important to be.

It's never enjoyable watching yourself. Because you're never as good looking as you hope you are. You're not expecting to be Penelope Cruz... but I'm a female of the species. I have my hang-ups and all of that.

I didn't really know anything about Margot Fonteyn. I'd never really been a ballet child, so I had no idea what an incredibly huge icon she was, not just in terms of a creative icon - she was also a style icon. I had no idea she was up there with Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis in terms of that kind of image.

We thought we were going to have a girl, so we had 15 girls' names lined up and a little boy popped out. We had no idea, and we had hardly any boys' names.

As I get older, I want to draw on my experience to make roles better. I see that in the older women who inspire me - their experience makes them better.

I remember I was unsure about doing 'Shameless.' I'd never acted in anything so commercial. I read the script in the garden with my mum, Mary. She said it's filthy dirty, but she said these people have love and sex and nothing else. That made me take the role.

I sometimes think it's like a weird elastic band. The more tragic your work is, the quicker you snap back. There's a catharsis in telling a miserable old tale; you get rid of demons.

I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.

I don't look like Catherine Zeta-Jones, so I don't think Hollywood would be that interested in me, to be honest. I just want nice work.

I just would like to keep going. If I kept getting the kind of work that I've been getting for the last 20 years for the next 20, I'd be a bloody Dame of the British Empire. I'd be so happy.

I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style.

That's the trouble with the suburbs: it's not a city, so you're not anonymous, and it's not a small town, so that people really care about you, but everybody kind of knows each other's business, so you're very judged.

Never trust a man who doesn't like Elvis.