Female television viewers paid attention to Catherine Gale.

But when this happens to you – and I think other people would identify with this – suddenly, colors are brighter. You see everything.

There have been plenty of very bare hotels with couples humping next door. I don’t stay in very grand hotels.

I believe I have lots of time. I have to believe that, that it won’t come back, and that that’s why I’m in good hands. But I also do live my life by putting nothing...

I have a resistance to change in things that I feel comfortable with and that I’m used to.

And it’s not that going out for a hack is wrong or bad, I certainly don’t view it as that; it’s just that there’s something about the dressage, being put through your paces, that makes...

So I – the thought that I would physically be different was – it’s not a thrill, I have to tell you. It’s kind of – it brings you up short. But I was able...

I hate everything about airports from getting there to taking off.

He had Parkinson’s disease for about, I’d say diagnosed for about 11 of the last years of his life. And treatment was not as good as it is now, of course. We’re still going along...

In some 50 Avengers shows I got kissed only once, and then the script called for me to dump the man on his ear for getting fresh with me.

I chose the surgery because I had to work. I had to work for my own well-being. I had to be on stage. I had plans to be on stage.

I love acting and making your own luck. You have to recreate yourself, I guess. Although, I don’t know how.

At first I was a bit indignant about it, and then I realised, ‘No, that’s what people want, so that’s what is given.’ But it’s not in your control. It’s just what happens to you,...

There were times after my marriage ended where, you know, I really felt like I was at the bottom of a mountain, there was a great big, fog up there, and I’m never going to...

I have a Calvin Klein travel handbag with four compartments that fold up. You can keep your tickets, passport and documents all together.

And I also am very nervous about implants. You know, I’m just nervous about all that. So I could still do it. I could think about it. But I needed to adapt to myself.

No More Avengers! There’s nothing new to get out of it – I want to go forward, not backward.

I did become American citizen in order to vote. I lived in this country for a very long time and I finally reached the point where I thought, I’m often sticking my neck out on...

There’s no way that I could do a 9 to 5 job. There’s no way. I was not cut out for that. You come in and you work for three months on the one job....

For sure, you don’t believe the good stuff. I mean, the good stuff is just insane – wacky. If you don’t take it too much to heart, it does help when the negative stuff hits....

They have – they do still hit me occasionally, and it’s an overwhelming grief for what – even though my life is so good now, even including going through treatment for cancer, my life is...

I’m the slowest reader in the world, because I perform it all in my head.

And I really also wanted to have the full-body scans to learn if it was anywhere else – and it wasn’t – before I told them. So I didn’t tell them, until for a week,...

I was made to be a perfectionist at everything I did. Everything was more important than what I wanted.

The old argument that the working class won’t enter higher education because they are afraid of getting into debt is patronizing.

I didn’t go into a depression where I stopped. No. I had what I called my days of grief, and they got further and further apart.

When you break up, your whole identity is shattered. It’s like death.

I feel that David took a risk with me. I have a sense that by starting off in the theatre and going off to do films you are seen to sell out in some way....

Well, right now, technically, I have no breast cancer.

I’m very fond of Norfolk. My husband came from there and the kids love it. Devon is beautiful, too.

And I think one can forgive, and I don’t think one can forget. I’m not sure what stage I’ve reached about my marriage yet, but I know I’m past it.

My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That’s what directors are, they’re storytellers because they’re directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.

You’ve got to sing sometimes like you don’t need the money. Love sometimes like you’ll never get hurt. You’ve got to dance, dance, dance like nobody’s watching. It’s got to come from the heart if...

I don’t know how I dealt with it. I went to a shrink.

I could never hold a job for more than three months, which works out well because that’s how long a movie shoots.

If you do anything for too long, it starts to lack edge, to become too easy. Easy is the kiss of death.

I’ve travelled around the UK a lot recently and have discovered that I really like trains. If you’re in the quiet carriage, nobody can get hold of you and you can relax.

And I would urge all women to have that regular mammogram.

I can’t hit a ball more than 200 yards. I have no butt. You need a butt if you’re going to hit a golf ball.

You see, money isn’t everything – I know it sounds corny but I really mean it – success means a lot more.

I don’t put off any time with my grandchildren. I don’t put off a thing.

If you’re going to stick around in this business, you have to have the ability to reinvent yourself, whether consciously or unconsciously.

It was a fantastic learning experience and OK, I got slammed because I wasn’t Audrey Hepburn but you could have predicted that, really, if you’d opened your eyes wide enough.

In fact, I’ll be taking a lot of Cathy Gale with me. I expect that was why I was chosen for the part.

And so I was very grateful that I didn’t do the British stiff upper lip, but I went straight to a therapist. And she was wonderful and helpful, and I went for about two years.

I’ve done so many movies that when I see them I don’t really watch them.

It is sensible to have a safeguard against unemployment.

I don’t want marriage. You know why? Because I did that. I did it for 32 years.

Sometimes in movies, I still have to be the hero, but it’s not all that important to me anymore.

That made me feel very disturbed, because it never seemed to be about how much hard work was involved. Ever. It was about… ‘hazel eyes’. It does help if you can brush that stuff off.