Anne-Marie Duff Quotes
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I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style.
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In theatre, there's the director, the writer, and below them the actor. In film, it's the actors who are most important. That goes against the grain for me.
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I only went along to youth theatre with a friend when I was young to try to make myself a bit more sociable. But the whole thing was quite sore; it really hurt me trying to get into drama school. It was a world I knew nothing about - it was very middle class; all that usual stuff. But I was young, determined, and I just went for it.
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I think creative people need to do a bit of, you know, tuning into every radio station - you just do, otherwise you don't know much about other people. You kind of have to learn a bit about yourself so you can work out how we all behave and why we do the things we do.
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We thought we were going to have a girl, so we had 15 girls' names lined up and a little boy popped out. We had no idea, and we had hardly any boys' names.
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I was desperately shy when I was wee. Totally lacked confidence socially. When I look back at school photographs, I'm always the one shrinking in the back. What I really wanted to do was become a writer, and I don't think the residue of that has ever gone away. I still feel the ultimate achievement would be to write a novel.
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I am very lucky. I have known wonderful romantic love in my life but to actually see this little creature and find him to be the most beautiful creature in the world. I know all mothers and fathers feel that way.
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Never trust a man who doesn't like Elvis.
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I remember I was unsure about doing 'Shameless.' I'd never acted in anything so commercial. I read the script in the garden with my mum, Mary. She said it's filthy dirty, but she said these people have love and sex and nothing else. That made me take the role.
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The life of an actor is very random. It can be exhilarating but terrifying - you do wonder day to day where the next job will come from. Some of my friends are very talented people, but you see them out of work - which can be tough. If you wanted that kind of security, though, I guess you wouldn't be an actor in the first place.
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The first thing that attracts me to any script is the writing. If I find myself becoming lost in a good yarn, then I feel certain that others will, too.
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There are some roles you just don't say 'no' to. Those compass points: you get them so rarely as an actress.
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I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.
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The experience of having a child does crack you wide open. I felt like I suddenly had to rebuild the skin that I'd grown over the years before having a child. Perhaps that might be quite interesting in terms of acting.
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It's never enjoyable watching yourself. Because you're never as good looking as you hope you are. You're not expecting to be Penelope Cruz... but I'm a female of the species. I have my hang-ups and all of that.
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I sometimes think it's like a weird elastic band. The more tragic your work is, the quicker you snap back. There's a catharsis in telling a miserable old tale; you get rid of demons.
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Your heart... it's a very fragile muscle. You have to take care of it, be old-fashioned about it.
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Nothing is more diminishing than trying to control success or hold on to things.
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There are people out there with three jobs and small children. Being an actor is a walk in the park compared to working as a cleaner overnight. I'm lucky I'm not plucking chickens.
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That's the trouble with the suburbs: it's not a city, so you're not anonymous, and it's not a small town, so that people really care about you, but everybody kind of knows each other's business, so you're very judged.
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That's the thing - you do a job like 'Shameless,' and suddenly that's why you can get a job like 'The Virgin Queen', not because of all the classical theatre you've done. But we can be very snippy about television. It's absolutely the most potent and powerful form of storytelling we have.
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You want to have enough of a profile to be able to do all the work you can, but at the same time you want to have your own space. But there are a lot of actors who achieve it, a lot of movie stars even, people like Emily Watson and Cate Blanchett. They seem to be able to carry on with their lives and still produce wonderful, high-profile work.
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Healthy love, I always think, is... wanting the person you love to be more of themselves. And I think for a parent that's a challenge, because you have to let a baby spread its wings.
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I didn't really know anything about Margot Fonteyn. I'd never really been a ballet child, so I had no idea what an incredibly huge icon she was, not just in terms of a creative icon - she was also a style icon. I had no idea she was up there with Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis in terms of that kind of image.