68 Quotes by Anne-Marie Duff

I try very hard not to take work home, but it can be tricky. Sometimes it feels as if you are wearing your costume underneath your own clothes! I suppose things are always ticking away in the back of your mind.

I think it helps to have a good old-fashioned trajectory, plodding along. Obviously one has an ego and it’s really easy to have that ego tickled, but what helps me get through the night is if I concentrate on just quality of work so that I don’t panic about my profile.

I just would like to keep going. If I kept getting the kind of work that I’ve been getting for the last 20 years for the next 20, I’d be a bloody Dame of the British Empire. I’d be so happy.

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.

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.

People at a point of conflict are always the most interesting stories to tell.

Any kind of conflict draws me to a role.

When I started drama school, theatre was the main draw. I never had any movie star notions. Not that there were family ties to the theatre, either.

Nothing is more diminishing than trying to control success or hold on to things.