Top 30 Caroline Quentin Quotes

I don’t think I had any idea how much I would love becoming a mother. Although I’m away a lot, my children, Emily and William, are secure. Sam, their father, stays at home with them and I’m at home as much as I can be.

I see a fitness coach three times a week and I do a lot of boxing, a bit of running when my knees let me, circuit training, fit ball, anything that will keep my heart going and stop me getting even fatter.

My parents got divorced in the mid-70s and I didn’t really have much to do with my dad after that. Or indeed much to do with him before that, to be honest.

I’m out and proud with my terrible haircuts and jumpers. I think my younger self would be amazed at the way my life has turned out, actually.

Getting older has compensations, though when you hit 50 you become very aware of your own mortality and it makes you reassess.

I’ve always refused to buy into the idea that I should look a certain way. People say I don’t conform to the idea of what an actress should look like, but I am what I am and that’s fine.

I have never gone for a diagnosis and I don’t consider myself to be bipolar, but I have extreme moods. I get heightened. I get very overexcited. But I do get very low, too… I don’t know whether it’s inherited or learned.

My husband’s a very good baker. He does all the baking at home – if there is any – because I’m a coeliac. I tend to avoid stuff like that, I don’t even buy it.

I have a very strict delineation between who I am and what it is. I very much do this for a living and it’s not my life. I think a lot of people in my industry define themselves by their work and it breaks my heart.

We live on a farm and we’ve never been happier, living in the country and pootling about. We keep chickens, turkeys and pigs, and I grow veg – it’s perfect.

I’ve worn costumes all my life. I’m a theatre actress, you know. That’s what I do for a living. I dress up, I wear makeup, I make a fool of myself.

I’m not mad keen on comedy that points the finger at people and ridicules them. I don’t find that very funny. I like the stuff where you feel better afterwards.

The ‘everymum’ persona is quite a comfortable coat to put on, and in a way it protects you. I don’t think I’m being deceptive. I like the women I play, so I’m very happy to be identified with them.

I hear radio plays that I did 20 years ago and I can’t bear it; I see things on telly that I made six months ago and I just hate them. I could name on one hand the things that I think are OK; the rest of it is just rubbish and embarrassing.

I’m very intolerant of people in my industry who don’t understand that a quality script is the most important thing. It makes me incandescent.

I started working at 16. I’m 60. I’ve been working for 44 years.

As an actor, you tend to have to be a bit of a people-pleaser, and I think that I just don’t really care about that so much any more.

I’m so used to my appearance, I don’t feel either offended or pleased by it. To be honest, I am not madly interested.

I am President of Coeliac UK, and apart from supporting Stand Up to Cancer, I want to raise awareness about coeliac disease. It’s an autoimmune disease – people often think it’s an allergy – and it can affect you very seriously.

I think that, as you get older, you become less focused on yourself and more focused on the people in your life.

But through therapy I’m realising I’m allowed to be vulnerable. And I’m allowed to feel shy. And I’m allowed to feel private.

I started out as a dancer and an actor, and I need to remind myself that I can still do theatre.

I’m not clever enough to write. It’s as basic and tragic as that.

My mother was quite poorly. She suffered from bipolar disorder, which at that time was called manic depression. She spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals, and my father was away a lot with the RAF and then with his job in civil aviation, so I was raised in part by my sisters and my godmother, Sylvia.

In my dream world I’d do a nice series every year, preferably one that wasn’t too long. But really – I’ve got to be honest here – it wouldn’t kill me if I never did it again.

As a woman, you can be funny and 50, but you can’t do much else – unless you’re Helen Mirren!

I know it sounds cheesy, but I do feel so blessed. I have a great job, I have the best children in the world and I have a darling husband who loves me.

Mum was a brilliant classical pianist. She was Canadian and studied music at McGill University. She took me to ballet when I was a little girl, and those are some of my happiest memories.

Now I’m coming up to 50 I’m sort of bound to play people who have children. Do I mind? Not in the least. Other people’s perception of you is how this industry works. It’s what I do, but I have a whole real life which is nothing to do with that perception of me.

I’m a huge fan of Tracey Emin. She’s so raw and vulnerable; she’s never formed the protective carapace that I formed very early on.