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" It was extraordinary to experience 'Mamma Mia!' What an injection of good spirit and heart it was. "

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" In a way, 'Mamma Mia!' was such a left-field thing for me. "

" If you have bad hair and you bite your nails, nobody expects that you can't direct plays. "

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" I have been very lucky, and I think it all goes back to state subsidy for the arts. I gained my training and confidence and credentials in the not-for-profit world, and in England, that does not mean on the fringe of things. It means right at the centre. "

" Onstage, there's a separation between character and audience; onscreen, you can go to a deeper place. "

" Do as much theatre as you can while you're at school. "

" To be invited to the Park - the greatest free Shakespeare festival in the world - is a great honor, and I don't take it lightly. "

" When I was asked to read a screenplay about Margaret Thatcher, I think I felt immediate apprehension. "

" If you're an actor, you have to look spiffing. But as the director, you don't need to look so glamorous. "

" When I began to direct, I discovered that I was much more comfortable than I was acting. "

" One is always attracted to pieces of theatre with great roles for women. "

" Directing is quite a nuts-and-bolts thing. It's a mixture of creating an atmosphere in which actors can feel safe enough to be dangerous. "

" I was hellbent on going to drama school, but my mother, rightly, panicked and persuaded me to go to university on the grounds that a degree would be 'something to fall back on.' Whilst at college, I realised I wasn't good enough or robust enough to be an actress. "

" I worked on live studio drama, which was one weird aberration in the 1980s. I worked on the 'Battle of Waterloo,' and my job was to reload the Brown Bess muskets - the only time the audience realised it was live was when somebody leant on a button and plunged the whole studio into blackout. "

" In the theatre in the U.K., women are at the very top of the tree as freelance directors. "

" It's the job of the artist to take something that everybody thinks they know about, they've made a decision about, they will be immovable on, and to shine a light on it. "

" I didn't really realize I was a woman director until I walked onto the set at Pinewood Studios when I did 'Mamma Mia!' and everybody was calling each other 'Governor' and 'Sir'... and then, looking at me, 'Well... good morning!' "

" In a way, the debate about Margaret Thatcher in Britain has just gotten fossilized in this notion that she is either this she-devil who wrecked the industrial base of the country and ruined the lives of millions, or she is the blessed Margaret who saved the nation and rescued us from our post-war decline. "

" In the not-for-profit world, I never felt that being female was an impediment. I was, however, given my break into commercial theatre by a female producer, Judy Craymer, and women - in particular, Donna Langley, president of production at Universal - were crucial in giving 'Mamma Mia' a home in Hollywood. "

" Shakespeare was writing about his time, and it was a time when women were beginning to demand a voice, demand a say in their lives for one reason or another, mainly to do with the economics of the time. "

" Movie-making is an extreme sport on many levels. It requires stamina such as I had never imagined. "

" Art is all about giving yourself these terrifying challenges, these peaks to climb. You're at the bottom of the mountain at the start of every new project thinking, 'Am I going to make it?' "

" You can't wait for someone to discover you; you have to just get on and do it. Have confidence that directing is a very suitable job for a woman - with our gift for collaboration, listening, and reading the nuance of things. "

" In management terms, directing opera certainly prepares you for a film set: the magnitude of it, the experts in other fields that you have to call on. Both are massive ensemble jobs in which there's incredible pressure to get things done on time and on budget - so much so that making the wrong decision may be better than making no decision at all. "

" I think Margaret Thatcher was a superstar in this country, and I think we all felt we needed a superstar to play her, somebody of huge intelligence, passion, and power and warmth. "

" To have Hollywood tell me or other women like me that we're not a market that interests them is silly. Good stories work. "

" I wanted to be an actress from about the age of five. "

" As a woman, I think Margaret Thatcher felt she had to be ten times more prepared than the men. "

" I think I wanted to do something that retained the improvised chaos of 'Mamma Mia' the theatre show which set it apart from all the slick packaged productions. "

" Opera is too obsessed with buildings. "