Diana Rigg Quotes
Actress
Once, when I was playing a nude scene in an indifferent play in New York, a critic wrote, 'Diana Rigg is built like a brick basilica with too few flying buttresses.' Do you think that's fair?
If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.
I thought it was ridiculous that I was being paid less than a cameraman, and I wanted to shame them. And I did.
Maybe at this stage in my career, it's from that younger generation that I have most to learn.
I made a bit of a stink. At the time, it was considered very bad form.
I've always been on the side of fully emancipated women with independent minds.
The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That's the only way to go.
You can't actually legislate what goes on in people's minds and their attitudes, but you certainly can legislate for parity where pay and salaries are concerned.
If you have a good inner life, you don't get lonely. I've got a good imagination. I don't miss romance.
I hope there's a tinge of disgrace about me. Hopefully, there's one good scandal left in me yet.
In actual fact, I doubled 'Twelfth Night' and 'The Avengers'. I was going backwards and forwards to Stratford. I played matinees Wednesday, matinee and evenings Saturdays, and the other days of the week, I was filming in Elstree.
If you're earning equal pay to a man, you get respect. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.
I've been single forever, and, oh God, I love every minute of it. I don't wish to sound offensive, and it always does when women say that, doesn't it?
All these old images of me floating across the screen, the terrible chasm of what you were and what you are. I know who I am, but these people who see me as I was then don't.
They do say that the profession gets increasingly difficult, but my career seems to have been inside out. I'm playing the biggest parts now that I'm older. That's probably right, because I wasn't ready for them before.
There is a life after being at the pinnacle of your beauty. Plenty of life and fun.
To all the younglings I come across in 'Game of Thrones' who suddenly find themselves well known, I say the theatre is your best friend - they will remember you.
I loved the idea of playing this naughty old bag, offering her own explanation. It's my idea of heaven.
'Game of Thrones' is wonderful. My theory is they employ all these British actors because, one, they are like me and grateful. Two, we turn up, and we know our lines. Three, we don't demand a 60 ft. Winnebago and PA, and four, largely we are very uncomplaining.
I confess I do a lot of the wrong things: I smoke, and I drink wine, and people might be horrified at my eating habits - I eat when I'm hungry, and if I'm not, I don't.
Working keeps me young. Anything that exercises the brain like learning lines.
I never relied on my beauty for anything. It was one of those things that was inevitable; you have a bit of philosophy about it. I didn't go into mourning.
I wouldn't like to see a female Bond, because we wouldn't want to lose the Bond girls. But we could have a lesbian Bond - why not?
Yes, well, you are quite camp, so I guess that he could see the point of you.
I think women of my age are still attractive.
Do you know, I have no idea how I got 'The Avengers'? I'd left the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I was one of a long list of girls, and got it on my audition.
I didn't know what to do with the fan mail. I had a little mini, and I used to put it at the back of my mini, and it grew and grew.
I think I'm a mousepad. I don't want to be a mousepad, but I'm a mousepad. I'm also a screen saver, thank you very much. It's weird.
I regard bed as my best friend.
The opportunity to be bizarre - I am bizarre, aren't I? - is just so wonderful, isn't it?
I am not aware of fans, because I don't live that sort of life, but I am awfully grateful.
It may be a masculine attitude to take lovers, but it's definitely prevalent. I'm certainly not the oldest person doing it - not that I'm doing it right now, but when I was.
I have always thought of myself as rather a happy person. Apart from a few knocks along the way, I consider myself to have been extremely lucky.
I've been in the business 60 years, and it's taken me this long to play a scene with a monkey. That's what happens if you stick around.
I was nice and well-mannered because I was taught manners. I was very imaginative and quite adventurous. I was a tomboy, and I was always jealous that my older brother Hugh had bigger toy aeroplanes than me. I was always playing with boys' toys; I don't remember owning any dolls.
I would head to the countryside for peace and silence. That would be the best way, away from panicked, hysterical people.
It tends to be overlooked that many people are indirectly affected by thoughtless and cruel journalism.
I would like to keep working forever. As long as they will have me.
I don't mind getting old except for the pain. I have two new knees, so going downstairs is not perfect. Nobody tells you about the pain.
I think you have to know someone to truly dislike them, don't you? That said, I'd shove most politicians into a cauldron and boil them up.
I come from a generation which definitely treated anyone older and more successful with reverence. But it's much more democratic nowadays.
Classes were incredibly boring. I took to dreaming. They took to punishing me. I was always working off punishments for not doing what I was supposed to do.
If a man holds a door open for me or pulls back a chair so that this old bag can sit down, I'm delighted.
You'll always be close to somebody that you worked with very intimately for so long, and you become really fond of each other.
Years ago I was at a function, and I must have said something really rude to Paul Daniels the magician. I can't recall what I said, but I remember him looking utterly crestfallen. I'm not that sort of person, but I must have said something very cutting and belittling. Our paths haven't crossed since, but if they had, I would have said sorry to him.
I never get lonely; even as a child, I didn't.
You have to have the same power to lead the life you want as a man does, and that means earning the same amount of money. We still have a battle on our hands with that.
I find the whole feminist thing very boring. They are so much on the defensive that they dare not love a man because they feel assaulted by being dependent.
I think politicians misjudge our intelligence. We can, and do, see through them. But I quite enjoy watching political programmes because they get the heart going.
There were no prototypes for me - the telly was full of little blonde juveniles.
I love women but am aware we're dangerous and deeply competitive, although I gave up being competitive long ago.
It's particularly exhausting because Medea is defined by her determination. The role is all about endeavour.
I read prodigiously as a child, and I still do.
There are those who have a knowledge and passion for the theatre, and those who don't.
George Lazenby was ill-equipped. It's not for nothing that they didn't offer him any sequels.
I'm really grateful for 'Game of Thrones'. It's something wonderful to happen to an actress of my age, and Dubrovnik is astonishingly beautiful.
We have no companies now, not in the sense that I know, that nurture actors. It's very depressing that, given the money they get, the companies today don't number up in my estimation. They should be bringing on young talent, and they don't.
I rely upon the directors to fill me in before a shot.
I have no way of comparing myself to other people my age; I can't compare myself with Jane Fonda, can I? I haven't had the work done. I admire the discipline of someone who maintains that degree of beauty, but I'm not prepared to do it.
I step into a character in my public life. People who don't make that distinction are dooooomed.
I don't mean to be oily, but critics are very much part of the theatre.
I'm so lucky. I could be sitting at home crumbling, but I'm not.
An awful lot of actors shy away from the uglier aspects of the human condition. They want to be liked, which is a cop-out. You've got to go for it.
Some of those early photographs of me might as well be sepia. It's always thought that I disclaim television and am too theatre, but the truth is 'The Avengers' bores me now. I was grateful because it catapulted me into stage stardom. It was good. I'm not ashamed of it. But I only did it for two years.
Most of the women in Greek tragedies have their fates predetermined. The gods dictate that such and such will happen to them, and everything they predict comes true. Not Medea.
Mostly what you remember and enjoy are the scenes you played with people. And quite often, they're the combative scenes!
There was a guy called Carlos Thompson, who was I think Argentinian, and he was doing a series called 'Sentimental Agent'. That was the very first thing that I did. It was supposed to be taking place in some exotic location, but in actual fact, it was Chertsey with a few shivering potted palms.
You hand the baton on, and that's why roles like 'Medea' resonate for years and years, as each new actor comes to it.
I was nourished and nurtured at Stratford as a very young actress. They guided me and forgave me!
It's a question of economics. If you're paid the same as a man, which now you are in this profession, you're equal.
I think Thespis just wanted to be a solo player, you know?
The first time Rachie and I will be working together is on an episode of 'Doctor Who' specially written for us by Mark Gatiss. How lucky is that?
Critics have to sit through an awful lot of rubbish, and you feel really sorry for them. In fact, I've been in a play where I felt sorry for the critics.
I love 'Mastermind'. It's touching that people spend so much time learning. I do have quite good general knowledge, but I wouldn't consider going on the show. I also like watching 'Only Connect.'
It was an extremely overdramatic play called 'Wild Decembers'. It was all about the Brontes, and they all, one after the other, died of tuberculosis. I remember taking every opportunity to cough over other people's lines.
I was very, very young, living in India. I'd been put to bed in the afternoon, and I had that lovely feeling you have when you're about to nod off. I remember the yellow curtains of the room blowing in the wind and feeling blissfully happy and content.
I'm portrayed as this tough broad, but I'm not.
I'm an old bag for the most part on 'Game Of Thrones', so it's so lovely to be glamorous - as glamorous as you can be at my age!
I've played the Greek classics; I've played the English classics. I promise you, I'm not complacent, because I hope to be playing all sorts of stuff that I've never played before while the mind - and the body - still functions.
We depend on the critics to give us a glimpse of what happened. Bernard Shaw championed Ibsen, who got the most terrible notices for his plays. Kenneth Tynan championed young writers, and as a result, the theatre has changed radically.
When my marriage broke up, I went to three separate therapists, and each was worse than the last. I can only speak for myself. There are other people it's been incredibly useful for, but not me.
In the old days, a star was someone up there - you know, Greta Garbo - but a telly star was somebody you could approach.
Tabloid newspapers are very rich and hold huge funds to fight claims.
It would be nice if they didn't make me get up at 5 A.M. for a 12-hour day. My caravan is never big enough to lie down. There is no little doze. You are knackered by the time you get home. Knackered.
I'd love to have done more film, but you can't have everything.
Many years ago, when I was working on Broadway, I used to go to a drug rehabilitation centre on Sundays. I didn't lecture them against the perils of drug-taking; I gave them drama therapy.
If it were said that I didn't fulfil my potential as a mother and wife, I'd be heartbroken. But if it were said that I hadn't fulfilled my potential as an actress, I would understand the reasons why.
These days, it's perfectly normal to move between the theatre and television.
There is always one thing that turns you into an icon, an iconic image: in my case, a catsuit. But the icon 40 years later doesn't really want to know because it's not relevant to me.
I cry all the time. Remembrance Day in particular. In fact, anything to do with veterans makes me sob.
I've been utterly and completely castigated from time to time.
They do say that the profession gets increasingly difficult, but my career seems to have been inside out.
I only know how to play bad mums because they're the best parts.
I get tetchy with myself when I forget. I also get tetchy when directors ask you for take after take after take after take for no apparent reason. I've heard Maggie Smith gets tetchy for the same reason.
Television has taught me an economy of style I didn't have before. I feel it has done me nothing but good.
I don't have it in for critics, and I never have.
It's a very powerful medium now, and should be celebrated as such, because we have the greatest television in the world.
I'm in a position to do exactly what I want. I travel quite a lot. I read prodigiously. I go to the theater, to concerts. London is a wonderful city to live in.
When I started, TV was regarded as something that wasn't as great as film or theatre or radio, but it has proved to have far greater powers than those.
I don't generally give interviews unless I have to promote a play and had sworn years ago, having been bitten once too often, never to be interviewed by a woman again.