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" I would rather give up acting than become world famous, because I think you pay a very high price. Writing and putting new plays out into the world has informed what I do, and I've had a lot more freedom to play really interesting parts. "

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" I have done some wonderful television, but you know, there's not as much exceptional material as there is in the theatre. So I do a lot of theatre, but really, as with most actors, I just love going from one to another. It's stimulating, it's diverting, it's a different way of life, and you know, I dearly like a good mix. "

Lindsay Duncan

You

Life

Know

" I do feel almost violent when I'm watching things that I don't think are good enough. I get furious for the audience. I want to say to them, 'This play is not supposed to be like this. They've got it completely wrong. You should be electrified by this.' "

" My background is really being a writer's actor - that seems to be the way I work best, bringing out the best of writing. There's a whole range of acting skills, and some people can be astonishing with very poor material. That's not me; my skill is essentially unlocking the writing. "

Lindsay Duncan

People

Best

" My mother was always deeply attracted to anything medical, and I think she would have loved me to have been a doctor. My father was in the army for 21 years, came out just before I was born. There was no history of showbusiness on either side of the family, but they were completely supportive. "

" I want to have the career that is my choice - what interests me, what doesn't. I feel more and more strongly about that. "

Lindsay Duncan

Career

Choice

" I suppose because I do and can work in the theatre, I don't see work as closing down as an older woman. "

" I've always been a material-based actor. That's what I've done, the choices I've made - like a heat-seeking missile. "

" I'm perfectly gregarious, but I can also be really happy left to my own devices with nobody watching me or listening to me. "

" I loved 'Homeland' - it's such an intriguing, intelligent piece of television, and I am fascinated by them making a hero and heroine that are so odd, so flawed and so complicated. It is a programme that really draws you in. "

" If someone said I had enough money and I could take six months off, I would run in an instant. "

" Recently I made the mistake of opening a bundle of reviews that someone had sent me of a production from years and years ago, and someone had written a really lovely review except that it made a remark about the way I spoke: 'A lot of people find her voice terribly irritating.' Do they? I had no idea. "

" I don't perform well in private. Socially, I mean. And I didn't as a child. Actors aren't necessarily outgoing, are they? "

" You always remember the delicacy of the work you do on a new play - the delicacy and the rigor and the courage. "

" I don't have any desire to be better known. "

" A certain amount of anger doesn't make us less empathetic, less humane, less loving. It just makes us real. "

" You're not cast because you're like someone or because you're sympathetic to them. You're cast because you can act. "

" My parents' generation was definitely pre-telly, and they knew how to entertain each other. Everybody knew something that they could do - a song or a poem, or a piece of music. At school, I remember being a cat and then a budgie and then a bumble bee. I obviously thought all that was marvelous. "

" That kind of creaming off the pretty postcard image of the past, I think, is a road to nowhere. "

" I've been listening to a new band called Wolf Alice, courtesy of my son. The vocalist, Ellie Rowsell, has a gorgeous voice. "

" I have the highest regard for Meryl Streep as an actress and think she's a fabulous person as well. "

" I've always had not just an affection but a real love for the theater family in New York, and I really feel it is a family. I'm so touched by the generosity of everyone there. "

" The excitement of stepping onto a stage - there's nothing quite like it. "

" Deep down, I think I would be utterly miserable in Hollywood. "

" I know I'll always work. In what form, it really doesn't matter. "

" I desperately wanted to play the part of Darth Vader's mother - I think she ended up being played by a Scandinavian actress - because my son was completely crazy about 'Star Wars.' "

" It's an important point to make that people can't just be invalidated, eradicated, because they don't fit tidily into a box. And more and more, the modern world is all about conformity. "

" I was the suburban kid of Scottish parents, and the idea of an acting career was so beyond my experience. I didn't even know there were drama schools until a friend told me. "

Lindsay Duncan

Experience

Friend