JULIE WALTERS

I keep seeing myself in my daughter, and I see my mother in me and in her. Bloody hell.

Oh all the time when Victoria Wood and I did our series. There were people asking 'Can women be funny?' People still ask that. It's like asking: 'Can women breathe in and out?'

It's getting better but men still earn more and there are more jobs for them. Ageism is a big thing. Parts for women disappear as you get older.

I'm massively talented, and very, very beautiful in person; the public don't really realise that.

I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

I don't like being out of the crowd. It's lonely within a group.

Sixty felt like a big landmark. Not in a dreadful sense, but none of the other birthdays have bothered me. It's got labels on it - OAP, retirement - and I just wanted to take stock. I wanted to be in my greenhouse at home and at least give myself the opportunity of not working again.

Debate is so much better than denial.

It's getting better generally, daily, especially in TV, for women in acting; and age and looks count less. As more women come into the business. Change of any sort takes a long time to happen.

I'd love to be in another film, but they haven't asked me. I think it's a shame but the prospects of me doing another one now are remote. Please do campaign on my behalf.

I never had any acting heroes. I never really went to the theatre.

My mother was born on a tiny farm in County Mayo. She was meant to stay at home and look after the farm while her brother and sister got an education. However, she came to England on a visit and never went back.

I felt my mother about the place. I don't think she haunts me, but I wouldn't put it past her.

My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want.

I'd like to think there'll be too much of real life going on for me to want to do much acting.

I was having my teens in my 30s.

That's why I'm an actress - escaping into a world.

Stage is the most exciting. Film is lovely, because it's like a family.

I couldn't watch Tom and Jerry. The cruelty was too much. I had all these strange images, of tiny animals, all mixed up.

I remember Michael saying, 'Rich and famous? It's much better to be just rich'. I didn't quite get it to begin with. But he's right. You lose anonymity. I say to my family that you've no idea until you lose it how precious anonymity is.

I was always someone who lived in the future all the time, it was always the next thing - dreams of escape.

There were all us baby boomers who had a grammar school education, started to learn, then went on the pill, the whole thing, and so there are today a lot more women writers, editors, producers, and so a lot more women's stories. God, the BBC's practically run by women.

As soon as I gave birth, it was as if you understand them. They become people, not kids. You start to identify with them. You see yourself in them.

I didn't come into the business to get awards or titles.

Along the way I have been able to choose some themes which ask questions - not necessarily force a message on anyone, but at least invite the audience to question things: jury service, dignity in dying, Ireland - and not least because they force me to ask myself questions. Where do I stand?