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

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" Margaret Thatcher always felt like an outsider in her party. "

" 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. "

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

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

" I realized that I didn't think I could stand the psychological battering that actors have to withstand. I just felt I wasn't cut out for that kind of self-promotion. "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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!' "

" 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?' "

" 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 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. "

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" If you believe that how you do your work is as influential as the work you do, then a theatre rehearsal, which is a microcosm of the world, is the perfect place to model social change because if it doesn't work this time, you can try again on the next production. "