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.'
— Diana Rigg
I don't mean to be oily, but critics are very much part of the theatre.
I would like to keep working forever. As long as they will have me.
I am not aware of fans, because I don't live that sort of life, but I am awfully grateful.
I don't mind getting old except for the pain. I have two new knees, so going downstairs is not perfect. Nobody tells you about the pain.
I find the whole feminist thing very boring. They are so much on the defensive that they dare not love a man because they feel assaulted by being dependent.
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.
I'd love to have done more film, but you can't have everything.
I get tetchy with myself when I forget. I also get tetchy when directors ask you for take after take after take after take for no apparent reason. I've heard Maggie Smith gets tetchy for the same reason.
Television has taught me an economy of style I didn't have before. I feel it has done me nothing but good.
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.
They do say that the profession gets increasingly difficult, but my career seems to have been inside out.
I cry all the time. Remembrance Day in particular. In fact, anything to do with veterans makes me sob.
I don't generally give interviews unless I have to promote a play and had sworn years ago, having been bitten once too often, never to be interviewed by a woman again.
Most of the women in Greek tragedies have their fates predetermined. The gods dictate that such and such will happen to them, and everything they predict comes true. Not Medea.
I love women but am aware we're dangerous and deeply competitive, although I gave up being competitive long ago.
When my marriage broke up, I went to three separate therapists, and each was worse than the last. I can only speak for myself. There are other people it's been incredibly useful for, but not me.
George Lazenby was ill-equipped. It's not for nothing that they didn't offer him any sequels.
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?
It would be nice if they didn't make me get up at 5 A.M. for a 12-hour day. My caravan is never big enough to lie down. There is no little doze. You are knackered by the time you get home. Knackered.
The first time Rachie and I will be working together is on an episode of 'Doctor Who' specially written for us by Mark Gatiss. How lucky is that?
You have to have the same power to lead the life you want as a man does, and that means earning the same amount of money. We still have a battle on our hands with that.
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 very, very young, living in India. I'd been put to bed in the afternoon, and I had that lovely feeling you have when you're about to nod off. I remember the yellow curtains of the room blowing in the wind and feeling blissfully happy and content.
An awful lot of actors shy away from the uglier aspects of the human condition. They want to be liked, which is a cop-out. You've got to go for it.
I'm an old bag for the most part on 'Game Of Thrones', so it's so lovely to be glamorous - as glamorous as you can be at my age!
I'm in a position to do exactly what I want. I travel quite a lot. I read prodigiously. I go to the theater, to concerts. London is a wonderful city to live in.
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.
These days, it's perfectly normal to move between the theatre and television.
Tabloid newspapers are very rich and hold huge funds to fight claims.
I have always thought of myself as rather a happy person. Apart from a few knocks along the way, I consider myself to have been extremely lucky.
'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.
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.
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.
There are those who have a knowledge and passion for the theatre, and those who don't.
I've been utterly and completely castigated from time to time.
I would head to the countryside for peace and silence. That would be the best way, away from panicked, hysterical people.
I have no way of comparing myself to other people my age; I can't compare myself with Jane Fonda, can I? I haven't had the work done. I admire the discipline of someone who maintains that degree of beauty, but I'm not prepared to do it.
I've been in the business 60 years, and it's taken me this long to play a scene with a monkey. That's what happens if you stick around.
I think you have to know someone to truly dislike them, don't you? That said, I'd shove most politicians into a cauldron and boil them up.
There were no prototypes for me - the telly was full of little blonde juveniles.
I only know how to play bad mums because they're the best parts.
The opportunity to be bizarre - I am bizarre, aren't I? - is just so wonderful, isn't it?
Mostly what you remember and enjoy are the scenes you played with people. And quite often, they're the combative scenes!
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.
Classes were incredibly boring. I took to dreaming. They took to punishing me. I was always working off punishments for not doing what I was supposed to do.
It tends to be overlooked that many people are indirectly affected by thoughtless and cruel journalism.
It's particularly exhausting because Medea is defined by her determination. The role is all about endeavour.
You hand the baton on, and that's why roles like 'Medea' resonate for years and years, as each new actor comes to it.
If a man holds a door open for me or pulls back a chair so that this old bag can sit down, I'm delighted.
