An M.P. once suggested I be put in the Tower of London for saying derogatory things about the royals. There's no First Amendment in my country.
— Tracey Ullman
There were no examples of girls like myself becoming successful actresses. To be an actress in England was a serious, upper-middle class girl's profession. I just thought I would never be accepted unless I pretended to become somebody I wasn't.
I love documentaries, I like observing real people.
I never worked with a dialogue coach before, but I'd hate it if an American did a British accent and didn't do it well. It would be insulting.
I'm not a film snob.
I've always been a misfit.
I'm sick of environmentalism.
I became an American in 2006. It got me thinking about what is my America and what's my perception of America.
Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?
My influences were Peter Sellers and the great British character actors.
It's funny - if you impersonate somebody, they have no idea it's them.
I'm usually put off by performers when they get political.
I'm as famous as I want to be.
I used to dress up and impersonate our next-door neighbor, Miss Cox. She wore rubber boots, a wool hat, and her nose always dripped.
I loved the late Gilda Radner. I love Carol Burnett and Lily Tomlin.
I like going to France, because no one knows who I am.
I don't get very involved in the L.A. scene. When you do get invited out, you are expected to be on all the time. It's just wearying.
The working classes in England were always sentimental, and the Irish and Scots and Welsh. The upper-class English are the stiff-upper-lipped ones. And the middle class. They're the ones who are crippled emotionally because they can't move up, and they're desperate not to move down.
I grew up with Jilly and Tamsin driving Volvos. But I wasn't one of them... I always felt more comfortable with Cockney and working-class people. My heroes were the Beatles and people like Michael Caine.
Great pressure is put on kids who don't have dads to get out and make money, and make life easier for everybody. It was always, 'Hurry up, grow up, make money, there's no man to do it for us.'
There's nothing I won't attempt.
I just want to do good work.
I just love to impersonate people, and I impersonate people because I find them fascinating.
I've always gotten a positive reaction to doing African-American characters.
You become so encapsulated in this world of being a star. People listen to what you say, you have this voice, it becomes unreal and you become far removed from the people you came from.
There are different types of love, and my love for my child is like me and my mum. We've gone through a lot of rocky patches, but we never stop loving.
It's the poignancy and sadness in things that gets to me.
It makes you more open, it gives you perspective, having a child.
I'm still that little girl who lisped and sat in the back of the car and threw vegetables at the back of her head when we drove home from the market. That never goes.
I worked with Paul McCartney for a while and saw what it does to you to be treated like a god for twenty years.
I think serial monogamy says it all.
I love John Waters. There's stuff in it that's beyond the boundaries of my taste, but his movies have always been like that.
I hope I never get so hard up I have to do advertisements. I've gotten ridiculous offers.
Every character I do is based on someone I know.
I like being the odd one out in L.A. Because if you conform, you become something you hate. I love being the odd one out. It's not about 'Look at me! Look at me!' It's about really becoming someone else.
A lot of stand-up comedy is embarrassing: too many idiots doing it in orange neckties against brick walls. I find most sitcoms embarrassing, too, because they seem so forced.
My mum would like to see me on the cover of 'Good Housekeeping' demonstrating children's toys with some nice lipstick on.
It's like a woman's birthright to knit. It's primal. It's timeless. You don't need electricity to knit. You can do it with a candle, girls!
I've always had to create my own markets and I've always been at a juncture in my career.
I don't see myself as a stand-up comic doing cynical, mean-spirited or disrespectful stuff. I'm very aware that I don't like to disrespect people too much.
I'm fascinated by Bollywood.
Work is important to me. I want to do things for principle, not just for the sake of doing them.
The show I did in England catered to a broad range of people. I like that. I don't want nouveau cult status, though I know we've got that sort of audience in the states.
It's sometimes shocking to find out what people really believe in.
I've never looked ahead very much in my life. I've never had any grand plan from the outset. I had no burning ambition to do what I do.
I'm not a crazy, party-going sort of person.
I wish I could believe that one person could make a difference.
I never wanted to do political satire because it seems too surface to me.
I like infomercials.
I hate clowns.
