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" The power of a close-up can be extraordinary, but you have to have actors who are able to reveal themselves. "

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" Opera is too obsessed with buildings. "

" 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. "

" 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!' "

" 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. "

" Frankly, I find it very odd that, in a population that's more than 50 per cent of women, that Hollywood isn't producing more movies to cater to that audience. The demographic is being grossly underserved, in my opinion. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I think courage is commensurate with your fear - if you lack imagination and you're fearless, that's not courage to me. "

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

" I was given a mask of myself by Frances Barber when we opened 'Julius Caesar.' I looked much younger and prettier. Wearing it was certainly cheaper than Botox. "

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

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

" In Europe, it is not so unusual for directors to move between opera, theatre, and film, and I have at least three girlfriends I can think of who have directed in all three genres. "

" 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. "

" I started working in London, and I've been free-lance ever since. "

" 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?' "

" There's something about doing Shakespeare with a single gender, whether it is all-male or all-female, that opens up certain possibilities. You are able to throw the behavior of the men into a particular relief and be playful within a slightly larger-than-life way with it. "

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

" I realised you could become fat and bald as a director and still remain employable. "

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

" 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. "

" 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 London, it's quite a rarefied activity to be on an analyst's couch. "

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

" 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. "

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