Maggie Smith

Actress

38 Quotes

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.

I like being outside and working with the elements. The elemental aspects of it. The physicality of it.

People say it gets better but it doesn't. It just gets different, that's all.

Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.

I fear that I won't work in the theatre again. I'm sad about that. But I won't retire.

The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing. I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody. I wouldn't have liked that. Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?

I don't think films about elderly people have been made very much.

I think lots of actors are very nervous and shy. I know lots of them who are, and some who aren't of course.

Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.

Some people say you have to fight cancer. But it was fighting me. The cure was worse than the disease, and it left me totally exhausted and depressed. I just hid myself away in my daughter-in-law's flat.

There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it's stunning, and there is nothing to match that.

I said 'It can't go on' and he said 'No, it can't.' Honestly, I don't think I could have mattered less to him by then. But by then, nothing mattered to him.

People think of you differently if you've been in their homes. They think they own you because they watched you while they were eating dinner, or they can turn you up or down, or even freeze you.

I have many good friends, but I tend to keep to myself anyway. It's odd, doing things and having no one to share them with.

I do love comedy, and when it's a comedy moment and you can make people laugh, of course it is wonderful.

The thing is, often press people ask questions that are so personal that even your nearest and dearest wouldn't ask them.

Old people are scary. And I have to face it. I am old and I am scary.

Chris and Toby are far too sane to be upset any more.

I know there is something out there and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad.

I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen.

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