Top 104 Quotes & Sayings by Diana Rigg
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British actress Diana Rigg.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
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 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've always been on the side of fully emancipated women with independent minds.
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.
I made a bit of a stink. At the time, it was considered very bad form.
George Lazenby was ill-equipped. It's not for nothing that they didn't offer him any sequels.
I hope there's a tinge of disgrace about me. Hopefully, there's one good scandal left in me yet.
I read prodigiously as a child, and I still do.
I think Thespis just wanted to be a solo player, you know?
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.
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.
I never get lonely; even as a child, I didn't.
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.
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'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?
I'm so lucky. I could be sitting at home crumbling, but I'm not.
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 think women of my age are still attractive.
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?
I come from a generation which definitely treated anyone older and more successful with reverence. But it's much more democratic nowadays.
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 don't have it in for critics, and I never have.
If you're earning equal pay to a man, you get respect. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.
In the old days, a star was someone up there - you know, Greta Garbo - but a telly star was somebody you could approach.
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.
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 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.
'Medea' is an enormous challenge for an actor physically, mentally, emotionally. You have to dig very, very deep, and to work, your performance has to be very personal.
I'm portrayed as this tough broad, but I'm not.
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 thought it was ridiculous that I was being paid less than a cameraman, and I wanted to shame them. And I did.
I would head to the countryside for peace and silence. That would be the best way, away from panicked, hysterical people.
Maybe at this stage in my career, it's from that younger generation that I have most to learn.
You'll always be close to somebody that you worked with very intimately for so long, and you become really fond of each other.
I loved the idea of playing this naughty old bag, offering her own explanation. It's my idea of heaven.
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.
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've been utterly and completely castigated from time to time.
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.
There were no prototypes for me - the telly was full of little blonde juveniles.
There is a life after being at the pinnacle of your beauty. Plenty of life and fun.
It's a very powerful medium now, and should be celebrated as such, because we have the greatest television in the world.
Working keeps me young. Anything that exercises the brain like learning lines.
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?
The opportunity to be bizarre - I am bizarre, aren't I? - is just so wonderful, isn't it?
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.'
If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.
Yes, well, you are quite camp, so I guess that he could see the point of you.
I was nourished and nurtured at Stratford as a very young actress. They guided me and forgave me!
I only know how to play bad mums because they're the best parts.
I rely upon the directors to fill me in before a shot.
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.
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.
It tends to be overlooked that many people are indirectly affected by thoughtless and cruel journalism.
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.
The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That's the only way to go.
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.
'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.
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.
If you have a good inner life, you don't get lonely. I've got a good imagination. I don't miss romance.
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