The pupil who is never required to do what he cannot do, never does what he can do.
It's an unfair comparison because when things are developed in the UK, they're developed at script stage only.
There are ways of avoiding becoming tabloid fodder and therefore giving people license to pry into your private life. And theres a distinction between being an actor and being a celebrity. You may become a celebrity through acting, but you dont need to do so.
I'd lived in LA for two years and I said to my agent that I wouldn't do any more network TV, because my family and I had just made the decision to live in England. It would be a whole year in LA shooting network TV.
I've always had a 'Work hard, play hard' attitude to life - I still do - but sometimes you get involved in something that needs a calm, methodical approach.
In the end, there's something of the puritan work ethic about me that roles really must sustain me on an intellectual level.
It's certainly true that I was brought up in that British amateur tradition, the one which always held that if you were reasonably good at cricket, knew one or two Latin texts and a few zingy Oscar Wilde quotes for dinner parties, you were pretty much ready to go and run some outpost in Hindustan.
To be secure everywhere is the mark of sophistication, to be unshakable is the mark of courage, to be permanently in love with every person is the mark of masculinity or femininity, to forgive is the mark of strength, to govern our senses and passions is the mark of freedom.
I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who "do not write for money. " It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one's best to express one's thoughts to people who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a working woman, and always had to be.
Giving is God's way. It is the way that I now understand is the truth of the Universe. Giving multiplies me and makes me feel complete and fulfilled. Giving makes me feel that I make a real and important difference.
By all means, let us simplify the means of controlling time and the myriad details of our lives, but let us vigorously preserve our responsibility to direct our lives toward human accomplishment, rather than the pure accumulation of information.