Quotes

[on her tendency to play villainous roles] I'd rather be thought of like that than to play Mary Poppins.

Difficult acting with a chimp? No, no. The emotions were the same. In a way it was like playing opposite Paul Newman. The chimpanzee reacted differently, that's all.

Oh, directors want me to be really stern sometimes. They like that quality in a woman. They find it compelling.

I didn't allow myself to have fun for a very long time, for all sorts of reasons. What's happened now is that I've lived through that, and I've come to a point where I can say that. I can feel happy too!

I'm just amazed. I'm glad to be alive, because I know what it's like not to want to be here, and glad that young directors want to put me in fantastic films. So say no more.

I had fun before, but if you can have fun the way I have when I'm nearly 60, that's quite interesting. If you don't worry about getting wrinkled and all that, and you just allow yourself to feel good, then maybe it's because your time has come.

I think you have to earn beauty. You can use it or abuse it however you want when you're young. It's a God-given gift. You have a visiting card - you can go into any room and someone will come and talk to you. But I've always thought from very early on that you have to be careful with that - not being vain or narcissistic. Have fun, but don't be obsessed with it.

There's an awful lot of pressure around the idea of a woman growing older and therefore losing that potential of being desirable, and that puts women into a situation where they feel almost embarrassed about the fact they don't have the kind of bodies that young women have, or they don't have the kind of sexual attraction that seems to go with a younger stage of their life. What does that mean, the fact that you're older? It means that you're not going to have the same kind of relationships you had when you were younger. I think we have to reinvent from a woman's point of view another way of being.

I generally don't make films to entertain people. I choose the parts that challenge me to break through my own barriers. A need to devour, punish, humiliate, or surrender seems to be a primal part of human nature, and it's certainly a big part of sex. To discover what normal means, you have to surf a tide of weirdness.

There are now different subjects coming up for us older women that certainly didn't before. Of course, sexuality and sensuality have always been forms that film is obsessed with, but it used to be a form for younger women because, well, they were much prettier, but now directors and audiences are using it to explore older women - it may not be quite so pretty but my God that won't stop me from investigating it.

[on posing nude with the Mona Lisa in the Louvre] It was such a powerful idea, a once-in-a-lifetime trip. It was really a magical experience, and there was something wildly audacious and naughty, too. You've got all these people looking at you from the extraordinary paintings, and it's a very spiritual feeling. You feel that you are part of hundreds of years of art.

[on living in France] I'm a legitimate foreigner. I'm an Englishwoman speaking French. They have no references for me, or my life, my childhood, my upbringing, my schooling. I'm exotic. They like that, and I like that.

He wanted to seduce all the pretty girls. That's for sure. As long as his wife wasn't there, I think he had a pretty good time with most of them. And that was Sean Connery.

When I take on something, I take the whole thing on. It's not even a question of separating, "Oh, am I going to be naked?" I go with my whole person.

I knew that was a world I couldn't survive in, that Hollywood world. I didn't consciously think about it, but I think I wanted to be a European.

I was brought up in the hard way. My parents were great, my dad was great, but we didn't talk about our feelings.

[on the kinds of roles she is attracted to] Films that come in quietly and actually do something to you. You could read them and think there's not much story there, but within that 'not much story', a hell of a lot actually goes on. The director wants to find out what goes on in between.

I like to wait and be invited to dance. I'm an old-fashioned girl.

[on Broadchurch (2013)] To act with David Tennant is the thing itself. You can't describe it. You just experience it.

[on Dexter (2006)] To come in at the very end of a series like that after so may seasons is like being a surprise relation arriving for the holidays. You feel welcome yet strange at the same time.

[on Stardust Memories (1980)] I thought I had retired from moviemaking and was just going to be a housewife, then [Woody Allen] sent me that script. Game over.

[on The Night Porter (1974)] With Dirk Bogarde beside me, I felt I could do anything. He would give you that cosy but creepy smile and you thought all was well.

[on The Damned (1969)] I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and doing what I was told. I knew it was very strange, but I didn't mind.

(Quoted by Earl Wilson in 1974 on reports that she was living in a ménage a trois with her husband, Bryan Southcombe and a male model, Randall Laurence) There are so many misunderstandings in life. I once caused a scandal by saying I lived with two men, but I didn't mean it in a sexual sense...I was just too dirty to clean my act up.

I don't know what a superpower is and I don't want one.