Notice: ob_end_flush(): Failed to delete and flush buffer. No buffer to delete or flush in /home1/ntptuqmy/public_html/quotes/includes/header_html.php on line 6 Lesley Manville Quotes - IQDb - Internet Quotes Database
I got invited to what's called the Gifting Suite in Toronto. I had the day off, so I thought I'd go and see what's what. You come out laden with wonderful stuff. Apparently, if you go to the Oscars, you get given things like iPads. Not that I'm in it for the swag.
The thing is this: I've got an amazing career in England that couldn't possibly get much better. I do the best theater around, I work at the National Theater, the Old Vic - which I'm sure you've heard of because it's the one Kevin Spacey runs - and I play the most amazing roles and work with the most amazing directors.
It gets easier as you get older because life deals its particular hand, and our experiences get deeper, richer, more profound. When I gave birth to my son, something happened. It is a huge thing for a woman: a whole set of emotions you never had before arrives, and a love you never had before in your life is now on tap.
Stage is the ultimate test; I like watching established screen actors on stage to see if they can really do it. But it's great to have a healthy mixture of the two. Film is so technical: there's something very particular about the relationship between you and the camera. It took a long time for me to get good on film.
One of the significant things that's happened, which shouldn't be looked at as lightly as it might sound, is that women over 45, over 50, are now allowed to be sexy.
My mother always cooked, every day, proper food. We didn't have fast food. It was probably pretty much meat and two veg, but as time went on and new things came into the culture, she embraced all of that. I grew up with mealtimes and sitting around the table with proper cooking and eating.
The more you've lived, the more you've experienced, you emotionally know a lot more, especially if you haven't had a regular, straightforward kind of life.
I hate that thing that if you are over 45, and you're going to be on telly or make films, you have to do all this stupid stuff to your face. I would no more let someone stick a needle in my forehead than fly to the moon.
I had two starts, really. The first was going to the Italia Conti stage school, aged 15. I'd gone to sing, but one day I found myself doing an improvisation and thought, 'Oh God, I quite like this acting thing.' The second start was meeting Mike Leigh when I was 22. He showed me I could play people that weren't like me.
I had left school at 16, gone to stage school - and, until I was 22, I hadn't really played anyone but myself. Then in 1979, I made a film with Mike Leigh called 'Grownups,' which went out on the BBC, and overnight this new career opened up.
I quite like that people tend not to know my name. I remember being at the Cannes film festival for 'All or Nothing.' I looked very different in the film - I had a little greasy bob and no makeup. I went to a dinner after the screening, and everyone completely ignored me. I got a real buzz out of that.
I do get clocked in the street. People say, 'You're an actress, aren't you?' But they don't know my name. Nine times out of 10, they don't know what I've been in.
I completely think of myself as sexual. Completely and utterly. Probably more so than I did when I was 30. I don't know why. I'm very comfortable with how I look. I'm absolutely committed to never having anything done to my face. I would never let anyone near me with a Botox needle.
Hollywood... that's not going to be my niche at all. If anyone is going wants to work with me, I would think it's going to be independent films. I'm not 22!
For Kitty Gilbert in 'Topsy-Turvy,' I had to get to the point where I could improvise in the style of 1880, which is difficult. The research for that was huge.
Anyone who has to write an obituary for me one day will probably say, 'She did absolute depths of agony really well.' I'm not, however, an unhappy person.
A lot of the actors I knew threw in the towel when they became mothers. I couldn't do that financially, and I didn't want to - but I was knackered all the time.
