Harriet Walter Quotes

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Harriet Walter

Profession : Actress

Birth : September 24, 1950

Where does an actress go after playing Cleopatra's magnificent death? Why didn't Shakespeare write more - and more powerful - roles for mature women?

Harriet Walter

I've been taking lessons in Damehood from Judi Dench. Being a Dame is useful in restaurants, hotels, and restaurants, Judi says, but you have to get someone else to do the booking.

Harriet Walter

Romance is about investing in the future - with older people, there is less time for happy ever after.

Harriet Walter

I decided I was going to play Cleopatra as someone with a brain. She's kept Egypt, this tiny country, in a balance of power with the almighty Roman empire, and she's done it through force of personality.

Harriet Walter

The language is always powerful in Shakespeare, but with 'Antony and Cleopatra,' the speeches are so big and muscular and rich - exhausting to speak, actually.

Harriet Walter

Cleopatra was exhausting to play, but also completely exhilarating. She creates her own energy.

Harriet Walter

I've done a lot of Shakespeare over the years. You start to realise how the plays fit together; he's always using pieces from one and slotting them into others.

Harriet Walter

I'm no longer the young woman I was playing before, and I'm in a profession where that continuum that is me is irrelevant to most people - they're meeting me for the first time, seeing me for the first time, and they're seeing an old woman, so that's what I've got to start being.

Harriet Walter

Acting is what I do with who I am.

Harriet Walter

I think I have a deep-seated fear of being misunderstood. Or being misjudged.

Harriet Walter

I've found a much better love life in older age.

Harriet Walter

You need to distinguish between getting something off your chest that won't help anyone else or saying something because you know you will be hell to live with if you don't. Quite often, this will be beyond your control.

Harriet Walter

I'm an oversharer but selective about who I share with.

Harriet Walter

Caring less about what people think is a big thing for me.

Harriet Walter

When I was really young, I wanted to be a fishmonger's wife.

Harriet Walter

I've one of those brains that doesn't quieten down.

Harriet Walter

My strangest experience was my six words in 'Star Wars.' I've had more fanmail from that than anything I've ever done.

Harriet Walter