Top 50 Dervla Kirwan Quotes

David Attenborough’s ‘Life’ series is phenomenal. He’s a wonderful modern soothsayer.

I’ve been very lucky with having a run of working with very special people and it just makes you work harder.

I think if you contribute to a job, and it’s repeated and repeated, and sold over the world, and the producers are making millions, you should benefit from it.

I am concerned that there’s a cavalier attitude to the Irish Peace Process. What poor memories some have; I remember only too well the bag searches, the bomb scares and deaths. As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes.

I want to interact creatively with the directors I work with – it’s a thrilling way to work.

I didn’t grow up reading magazines; I was very much in an environment where that would have been deemed trivial, frivolous.

Sometimes, people are attracted to each other without knowing what or why or when it happens.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) runs in my family, as do other mental health problems.

I’m obviously slightly ill, because there is a burning desire to be perfect in me. It’s probably the Catholic, or the ex-Catholic in me.

Twenty or 30 years ago, certainly when my mother was my age, I’m sure she felt things were pretty over for her. You had your kids when you were 20. You brought them up. They left home. Then what do you do? While I feel genuinely optimistic. Well, I have no other choice.

I just really wish I’d met my grandfather.

A lot of first-time mothers worry about how they will cope. But I’m more patient than I thought I would be even though there are good days and bad days.

I watched ‘Lagerfeld Confidential,’ which was such an insight into the daily life of a maverick designer.

I’d much rather go for a long walk than spend an hour in the gym.

The very nature of acting is one minute you’re up and the next you’re down; one minute you’re in favour and the next you’re forgotten. You go away and you come back again.

Now it comes to this stage of my career when I get to play the wicked witch all the time. You know you start off with Cinderella and then you end up playing the stepmothers.

A lot of actresses say they are 24 when they are 34 but I find that ridiculous. I wish we didn’t succumb to the youth-is-all ideology in this industry, because there is a huge audience out there who want to relate to characters of their own age played by actors of their own age.

Spending time away from family during filming, I think, for every working mum is always difficult. But it has to be done; there’s no way round it you’ve just got to do it.

I am quite a mercurial person.

I don’t want to be known as ‘oh, Dervla, when she’s on stage she’s very good but she’s terribly dreary’, or ‘another heavy night with Kirwan.’

My kids will never need a bodyguard because they’ll have me.

Since I was 15 I’ve lived in fear that I’d never work again.

I’m not a religious person at all.

Los Angeles is not going to be a big naive step for me. I know it’s tough out there, but I do think there’s a place for Irish actors in that market.

I don’t have a great relationship with food.

I’m a terrible cook but I wish I wasn’t.

I never read the good press and never read the bad press. If you believe the good press you’re finished. If you believe the bad press, you won’t be able to continue.

I never discuss my troubles in a relationship. It’s best to just keep those thoughts to yourself.

I am very scatty, I don’t follow things through, I forget things. I am not perfect.

It makes a lot of people cringe, the idea of being a team player.

It does annoy me when I walk into a room and there are six men over the age of 40 with, let’s just say, a major gut problem, and they’re saying ‘hang on there Dervla, don’t eat your chocolate cake at dessert.’

I can be a totally different person from one day to the next, so it is difficult for me to stay in one role over a prolonged period.

The main thing I’ve done for my children is not to give them a stupid name, like actors do.

I was pregnant with my first child and so gloriously happy. I felt fecund and powerful.

There’s still, dare I say it, a cultural propaganda against the Irish, that we are, as women, ‘feisty.’ I hate that word.

My parents have a brilliant ear for languages and mimicry and accents, which I think I’ve inherited – that I can listen to things and pick them up.

I was a waitress at a really rundown Italian restaurant in Dublin, for about a week, at 16. I thought it was going to be romantic – overhearing affairs and watching first-time couples all loved up. But instead I was just running about constantly.

I take the kids horse riding every weekend at Quob Stables – the people there are lovely.

There is a wealth of fabulous actresses in England.

I’m only 5ft 2in so a significant increase in weight is really going to be noticed.

Growing up, I wanted blond hair.

Who hasn’t had an argument with their mother-in-law?

I was a product of the late ’70s and early ’80s, so when we think of how we’re so protective of our kids now, it’s sad in a way. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we limit the development of our kids in a way.

Yeah, I talk to everyone. I think that’s the secret, you know. Keep it friendly, keep it warm. People just want to connect, don’t they, at the end of the day?

My Irish identity is important as it’s a part of who I am.

Because I don’t live there anymore, I’ve fallen in love with London again.

My mother was a woman of the ’50s who had a family in the ’70s while finding her political and feminist voice. She could make marvellous three-course meals after teaching all day but hated it. Because of that legacy, it took me a long time to realise the delights of the family table.

I used to be nervous about not working and so would work for the sake of it.

As long as you’re chasing something, that keeps you alive, right?

When growing up, there were never any conversations about the past, because if you don’t ask the questions, you never get the answers.