Top 40 Andrea Riseborough Quotes

When I talk about work or my take on life, all the joyfulness and excitement never seem to make it in.

I’ve worked opposite so many male actors whose egos have been so delicate that it was just so hard to do the work.

Sometimes you need to break away from something in order to know how much you need or want it.

I’m still wearing Doc Martens. I’m sure that you can have a baby and wear Doc Martens, but… Maybe I’ll be the first person to give birth in Doc Martens!

I grew up in the suburbs outside of Newcastle, and there were blank walls, and there was a lot of space to imagine – the fields and the motorways – so I used to sit and talk to myself as different people.

Tracey Emin’s ‘Strangeland’ made me see that everything I have to be creative is inside of myself.

I’ve worked with so few female directors.

I think it’s really hard to move between genres, and I think, especially in Britain, we’re very judgmental about it – me included. I know that when an actor comes out with some poetry or an album, I think, ‘Oh crikey, what’s this going to be like?’

I’m interested in having a relationship with the world that’s not my own.

I really enjoy picking up the physical rhythm of somebody else, speaking with their voice. I’ve never done in anything in my own voice, and I can’t imagine what that would be like. It would be weird, I guess.

I can’t tell you how disheartening it is to be told to go home because the director is filming you from behind and you don’t have the right kind of body. As an actress, to be told that… Well, it’s just a very odd set of circumstances.

David Suchet’s Poirot was very charming, and, when I’m away in the U.S., those series remind me of being in Britain and being British on a Sunday night.

Maybe I’ve just been incredibly fortunate, but there’s a level of dedication, devotion, intensity and seriousness around me every day.

Every time you get the chance to work with somebody you admire and would like to collaborate with… it feels like the best opportunity that’s ever come your way, whether that’s in fringe theatre or a really big-budget Hollywood movie.

People are fascinating. They’re so unique and I think what’s more fascinating is the reason behind the physical characteristic, the enigma, that’s where the gold dust is.

I’ve always worked very hard.

Women are really complex and totally enigmatic. Humans are really complex, but in film, we’ve only ever seen that with men. We’ve seen antiheroes time and again with male characters.

We worked with David Thibodeau, who wrote a book about Waco, on which the series is based. He’s one of the nine survivors.

We all grew up aware of Agatha Christie; there is no writer more prolific than her in England.

Often, I’ll read a script and the female character’s an extension or serves some sort of purpose in terms of the male character’s narrative and it just isn’t fully formed. But they will be very beautiful. Whether a secretary or a doctor or a vet, they will be very beautiful.

I worked on ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’ for seven-and-a-half months, and I’m in it for two minutes – largely because Sally Hawkins turned left instead of right.

I play myself every day, and it’s quite boring.

I’m very pragmatic.

When you’re playing a romantic version of a real person, you’re playing a version of the truth.

I tend to be overly responsible for other people’s feelings.

I think every work is hard in different ways.

I subscribe to no religion. But I believe that in the creation of art, there can be moments of God.

I’m an artist; affirmation is like catnip to me.

Someone who’s a great hero of mine and has become a friend is Patti Smith.

We need to band together in solidarity. There’s so many portions of our community that are under-represented. You rarely see disabled actors on movie posters or black men or Latino guys.

‘Venus,’ which is a Roger Michell film – my first scene was with Peter O’Toole, and I cried. That was basically my part. I came in, cried in a white wig, and then left.

I’ve always thrown like a girl.

When I was younger, I used to try to fit in, but now I’m much more comfortable with just being myself.

Fear is the enemy. I distrust it. Any feeling or decision I make that might be motivated by fear I quickly reassess.

Transformation as a female actor is allowed up to a certain extent – as long as they can still recognize you on a red carpet. For a woman to be a shape-shifter, and to be that malleable in spirit, is really not OK with the patriarchy.

I am a Graham Greene fan – I’m just a ferocious reader. I read an awful lot when I get the time.

Shakespeare was the thing that started me off on that train, you know, and every one of his plays. There are so many different characters, and the wonderful thing about being in an all-girls school was I got to play them all, you know. So I got to play Mercutio and Oberon and Malvolio – it was great.

I love the company of actors, but the crazier it gets, the more I’ve come to realise how valuable my time is with my friends who work on the land or are builders or, you know, make music. Work in offices. Run shops.

People think I’m totally crackers.

I always do a lot of work around characters to make them real people because, oftentimes, they really are a sliver of a person. Even with truly wonderful writers, women characters are there to emote, and they’re often incredibly chaste or worthy. Or they’re a ‘different type of woman’, which is the worst.