Geraldine James Quotes

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Geraldine James

Profession : Actress

Birth : July 6, 1950

I'm stopped more regularly about 'Utopia' than almost anything I've ever done. People will come up and say 'you were in 'Utopia,' why was there no more of it?' I have no idea. People loved that show. I loved that show. I adored doing that. I thought it was miraculous.

Geraldine James

Sometimes you do a job and you think, oh golly, that's enough isn't it?

Geraldine James

Because British actors hold Shakespeare in such great reverence, we tend to go for the word, which tends to make things very intellectual.

Geraldine James

Us actresses, we all want to look like wonderful princesses and be sweet and lovely. And it's very difficult to walk out and risk 1,100 people hating you. But it's also infinitely more interesting.

Geraldine James

I found out when I was very young that I could make people laugh. I think I was a dreadful showoff.

Geraldine James

Shakespeare writes such wonderful parts for women, parts that work so well today. I think he really liked women.

Geraldine James

I try to only do jobs I don't know how to do.

Geraldine James

I don't like doing what I've already done. But there's a lot of different kinds of characters that I'd like to play. More comedy, more classical theatre, more European theatre, more movies. I'd love to play a character close to myself in a film... because then it's about revealing, rather than about putting on a character.

Geraldine James

Very early on there were the girls who were good at singing, at the arts, or mathematics or languages, and I wasn't good at anything. I didn't shine.

Geraldine James

I had a fabulous teacher, my headmistress's husband, who taught Shakespeare for A-level, and then I found this person called William Shakespeare and a play called 'King Lear.' The teacher took us to see it at Stratford and I remember Eric Porter, Alan Howard, Michael Williams and being completely blown away by it.

Geraldine James

The first job of an actress, for me, is creating relationships with other characters, and you have to achieve that almost instantly.

Geraldine James

When I left drama school I worked in children's theatre for six months, then went up to the Gateway to do my first ever rep job.

Geraldine James

Friends become more important as you get older and give you a sense of where you are.

Geraldine James

It's very comfortable to work with somebody that you know well.

Geraldine James

My fantasy was to have a home in the country with six children, all with different fathers. The fathers would come down occasionally and provide for us. I thought that was a marvellous solution - just me and all my kids.

Geraldine James

I was brought up very traditionally to think the man should be the breadwinner. My concerns were all about fulfilling an image that has been dreamt up for you.

Geraldine James

My parents were stuck in the idea of what a marriage should be, and they divorced. So I've tried to take the word 'should' out of my vocabulary.

Geraldine James

I used to run quite a lot and then I stopped.

Geraldine James

You see people who, because they are leading actors, think they're of a higher echelon than mere mortals. And that really annoys me, because that's not true.

Geraldine James

If people say, 'Please don't tell anybody,' I say, 'I can't involve my husband in that. He has to know.' He's party to everything but he doesn't talk about things. So my discretion levels are fairly high.

Geraldine James