If I dress up, I try to wear something that's still a bit me, but then I regret it when I see that everyone else has dressed up more and looks amazing.
— Maxine Peake
I'm really unimaginative - once I like something, I fix on it.
My favourite outfit is a giant bunny suit. I wore it in a music video for 'Are You One?' by the Chanteuse & the Crippled Claw and got to keep it.
Crying does not equal good acting.
I look up to the older generation of men - Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn - but my main role model has been my step-granddad Jim. He's brilliant, very political, quite eccentric.
My kind of work is very intense. The trouble with me is that I completely fling myself into it. I get giddy. I get terrible crushes on jobs.
I wasn't an obvious actress in any sense of the word.
Pay in the acting world hasn't kept up with inflation.
I was told, 'Your career's made by what you don't do,' and that always stuck with me. I drive my agent mad!
It's great having time to just sit back and work through things in my mind. It helps put life into perspective.
I have recurring dreams about losing my temper, which become quite violent. I dread to think what that says about me.
I remember when New Labour got in. I was at Salford Tech studying drama, and everyone was jumping up and down, and I was so upset, I went to a phone box and called my granddad.
I left the North when I was 21 to go to drama school in London, and I stayed there 12 years.
I must admit I don't usually buy a daily paper, although I will get one if there's an interview I want to read.
As I've got older, I've got slightly more fussy. You've got less time; you need to use it wisely.
If I were to appear in a programme like 'Sex and the City,' I'm sure I'd be cast as the downtrodden one staying at home and having seven children while the others jet-setted around the world.
I'm a big comfort eater, so if I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'll just stuff my face.
I think you can tell a lot by someone's footwear - cowboy boots would put me off, as would a man in Ugg boots or Crocs.
A few things make a person stylish: honesty, imagination with a sprinkling of humour. I still keep an eye on trends, but I don't follow them any more.
Music is a huge inspiration to my style. I first got into it when I was 10: the new wave mod scene.
I went to Salford Tech. They did a two-year performing arts course. I went there singing and dancing - I had a terrible time. I turned up in green dungarees and German power boots. I was into prog rock at the time - Gong and Hawkwind - and I was clumping around.
I didn't have my first serious boyfriend until I was 23. Then after that, I went out with a guy I'd been best friends with all through drama school.
I'd rather go down with an almighty bang than play it safe.
I was a tomboy. I had a pudding-bowl haircut; I wore big Doc Martens and dungarees.
I do, in a strange way, care deeply what people think.
I am an actor. I love acting, and I absolutely love what I do, but I don't want it to be every waking hour.
I get easily distracted and become a bit of a giddy giggler. I'm not good at taking myself seriously, and laughing at myself helps ease the pressure.
Sometimes it feels like the feminist movement never happened.
I get angry about the way women are forced and bullied into what the male ideal is.
I'm not a fan of reality TV.
There aren't that many great female roles in Shakespeare - none that I'd be desperate to play.
In my 20s, I was going round seeing agents who were patronising because I was fat and a girl, which was a double whammy. I knew what it was to feel out-of-the-loop.
The women I play don't sit in the corner eating lettuce leaves and talking about what designer shoes they have.
When I'm going to work, I often stop and wonder how I've got here. I don't mean literally, but just thinking back to when I first had the idea of being an actress, it seemed so unreal, so unlikely. People like me just didn't become actresses. Every new job I get comes as shock. It's almost as if I'm waiting to be found out.
I think people expect me to dress a bit like Veronica from 'Shameless,' in vest tops and denim skirts.
I'm inspired by films from the early '50s, especially Jean Simmons in 'The Clouded Yellow' - and by vintage swing, psychobilly gigs, sea shanties, and English folklore.
I know I sometimes come across as being quite dismissive about acting. But I'm not. It's like people reading their diaries in public. I don't want to talk about how I create characters. I find it self-indulgent.
Unfortunately, at the end of the day, when you watch yourself on the screen, you are always you.
I've always had pop-star crushes. I had a huge crush on Ian Brown.
I'm quite cautious in most areas of my life, but I'm always happy to gamble when it comes to acting. I'm not frightened of falling on my face.
I'm unusual in that I've worked more as I've got older.
What's wrong with wanting the best for everybody?
The films, the music, the telly that I like is always a little bit more on the margins.
I actually used to compete at show-jumping when I was a young'un.
I joined the Communist Party when I was 18. When I was 10, there was the miners' strike, and the Cold War was going on; it was quite a potent time to get involved in politics. I got involved through my grandfather, who was a member.
For me, politics is about passion. It doesn't matter what you know; it's your actions that count. I meet people who say they're socialists, and that's not what they carry out in their everyday life.
Generally, I am losing faith in telly, as we do have good dramas but not as many as there should be.
Male? Female? It's not always relevant to some people. They are who they are - they might not fit into a specific box.
People will always respond to high-class drama.
You don't want to bash viewers over the head with a blunt message or lecture them - they'd soon get bored with that.
