Francesca Annis

My mother was madly adventurous. My father was an actor - he worked with Gielgud - and my mother came from a very wealthy family. She definitely wasn't meant to marry an actor, but she eloped with him one lunch-time. ”

The thing about doing anything artificial to your hair is that you have to look after it. So you're always vulnerable to the weather and time. ”

When I was starting out, young actresses had the studio system to protect them. Now you have a host of sharks, from your agent to your publicist to your lawyer. ”

I consulted a Chinese herbalist and spent two weeks on an island off the coast of Zanzibar. I was away from any kind of contemporary technology. ”

Exposure makes you famous, not just good work. Famous is being plastered everywhere. ”

I maintain the rather old-fashioned view that this is my work and it's in the public arena, but that doesn't entitle everyone to know what happened at home before coming here. ”

Judi Dench and Ian McKellen taught me how to work hard and respect the theatre. ”

The wonderful thing about acting is you move along with your decade. The older you get, the more interesting the parts you get to play and you bring more of your personal experience to the part. ”