Top 25 Glenda Jackson Quotes

No, I didn’t think of myself as an idealist. I consider myself as a believer in what I regard as the Labour Party’s basic principles, which have to do with equality and ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. You know, the golden rules.

You don’t do a play to compete for an award. This was the argument I always had over the Oscars. I didn’t win them. They were given to me. All I did was 2 films. People always say the analogy is Olympic gold medals.

You’ve got to sing like you don’t need the money.

I want to do a musical movie. Like Evita, but with good music.

If a woman is successful, then she’s deemed to be the exception that proves the rule. If a woman fails, well, we’re all failures. That kind of underlying approach to our gender doesn’t seem to me to have changed an iota.

No, I’m not recognized in London. What would people recognize?

What interested me, was that as we age, those seemingly unbreakable barriers that define us, our gender, they begin to crack, to blur; they’re not absolutes anymore.

Our job is to unleash the play. It’s not just about your character or interaction with the other characters. There’s an energy in all good plays which you have to find. And that is part and parcel of ensuring that an audience gets what it’s about.

I told them I wouldn’t sign a blank cheque.

My money goes to my agent, then to my accountant and from him to the tax man.

One hell of an outlay for a very small return, with most of them.

When I have to cry, I think about my love life. When I have to laugh, I think about my love life.

My life was transformed by the Labour government of 1945. It was transformative for millions of people like me, you know – education, the health service. It was proof that politics can make life better for people; that a social dream can become a social reality by the power of government.

When I was feeding myself by being a professional actress, I never got a good notice in the ‘Evening Standard.’ And when I changed direction and became a Labour MP, I was the wrong political party for the ‘Evening Standard.’

I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious.

Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant.

I was blessed by my parents and my antecedents by a very strong work ethic. I mean, being a Member of Parliament is 24/7, just as much as when you’re actually doing a play. It’s not quite 24/7, but it’s the work that counts.

I’ve always been ambitious to be very good at what I do.

The best teacher is an audience. The ideal performance is when that group of strangers sitting in the dark gets energy from the group in the light and sends energy back to us. When it really works, a perfect circle is formed.

You can go onto that stage every night, and it’s always the equivalent of going onto the topmost diving board, and you don’t know if there’s any water in the pool.

I’ve always said the first duty of life is to live it, and I do believe that. And we delude ourselves if we think it’s not going to end. How we individually meet that, I think, is entirely individual.

My fear with ‘Lear’ was that I would not have the physical or vocal strength. But this play, it’s all in your head. That was one of the really interesting things when we were rehearsing it: We were all exhausted because it was all up here.

Rock Hudson. He was an absolute human being. Charming, funny, real.

Anything I could have done that was legal to get Margaret Thatcher’s government out I was prepared to do. I could not believe what she was doing to this country.

If I’m too strong for some people, that’s their problem.