Tamsin Greig Quotes

There aren't many laughs in that and I remember doing a look and everybody laughed and I just thought, wow, that's incredible how you can do that. So I did another look and they laughed again and then I remember thinking, hold on, this isn't right for this piece, you've got to stop it.

Laughing and crying are very similar. They're an extreme response to life. You see it in children who start laughing hysterically.

When I came to faith, I thought I would have to stop being an actor, because it's all about artifice and manipulation. But we're living in a world where God doesn't really have an influence, unless it's fundamentalists, so I'll always be an outsider because of my faith. And when you think about it, faith and acting are all about stories, so the two are not mutually exclusive.

I think comedy stems from being honest, often painfully so. I hope I can achieve that perspective in my own life and also have fun.

Radio listeners often have a very fertile imagination when it comes to body shape.

If a job fell from Heaven that was in America, I'd have a go, but I don't feel compelled to go and hunt it down.

I think I'm a bit odd.

I am interested in shows that are not out-and-out gag fests: you see the truth of a broken heart behind them. That is what life is like: it's really funny, you see funny things as soon as you step out of the room, but underneath that is a whole bag of broken hearts. It's that real pain and that real hilarity that makes life so intriguing.

I tried to get into the National Youth Theatre and didn't, and I tried to get into drama school and didn't, and then I went to university and was really delighted that I went there. I think having the word 'no' can be quite creative.

I can do a little bit of comedy. I can be in an in-between place, where I can do a little bit.

When I was growing up, I was obsessed with 'Cagney and Lacey.'

I work in Britain, where women are allowed to look their age.

A lot of middle-aged women are children still trying to find their way.

You step over the threshold of your parents' home, and you're instantly transported back to your childhood. It's like time travel. You revert at once to a place of arrested development.

I feel like a 16-year-old trapped inside a dead woman's body.

It's interesting to see the dislocation between how people perceive a person visually. Apparently on the radio I'm blonde with a big arse.

I've been so amazed at the number of really professional top-of-their-game women who I know to be intelligent, well educated and brilliant who have said, 'What was it like to snog Matt LeBlanc?'

I always said there's no way I'd work in America because I'm too weird and I'm too old, but somehow it's happened.

I knew a homeless guy who'd give all the copper coins that people gave him to charity. So I think there's something that makes us want to give. For me, it's quite a selfish luxury: you feel enlivened, deepened and self-nurtured by generosity.

Scientifically speaking, if I say something, or it gets misquoted, or people put a spin on it ... I mean, are you interested, really, in what people are saying?

I know women at work who don't talk about having a baby because they don't want to upset the apple cart, but unless people know what the problems are, why should they engage with it?

I did used to like trampolining, but I'm probably past it, I think. You need to have a really strong pelvic floor to be good at trampolining, and I've had three children.

Families are families. We've all got them, more or less, and we all know what it's like to be bullied by another generation.

Going to rehearsals of school plays got me out of science. It became clear what inspired me and what dampened my spirit. The only other thing I could do at school was trampolining - it didn't seem to have much future in it.

We live in a fast-paced culture where we're asked to make snap decisions all day long, so I suppose cash-point donations feed into the immediacy of our life experience. So it's a great idea. But I think it needs careful handling.

I am not stupid - I'm not young, and I'm not beautiful.

Every drama school in the country turned me down, and so I was lucky to study drama at all, even if it was lowly Birmingham University. But even when I came out with my degree, my mother promptly insisted I go straight to secretarial college to have something to fall back on, just in case - which didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

I'm an actor, and I'm supposed to reflect real people.

On my mother's side I'm Polish-Jewish, and on my father's side I'm Scottish puffin.

I've long thought that for my last meal on earth I will be perfectly happy with a granary loaf toastie with melted crunchy peanut butter and banana.

When we were growing up, women in their late 40s generally didn't dye their hair.

I think comedy is the perfect vehicle for that which is slightly beyond life.

Writers have to be very careful and discerning because so much of the machine is out of their control.

I think if you're trying to be funny, sometimes you're bending a piece of metal in a direction it doesn't want to go. And sometimes comedy just needs to find itself.

I think going from doing TV and straight plays to Shakespeare is weird enough because you have this heightened language, and you are telling a story through metric poetry. But I think music is that place beyond poetry.

I've been acting since I could function. I got into acting to get attention as a child.