PHYLLIDA LLOYD

Margaret Thatcher was pro-choice. She voted to decriminalize homosexuality. Was not profoundly religious. She was very liberal on social issues.

If you're an actor, you have to look spiffing. But as the director, you don't need to look so glamorous.

Opera is too obsessed with buildings.

Shakespeare was writing about his time, and it was a time when women were beginning to demand a voice, demand a say in their lives for one reason or another, mainly to do with the economics of the time.

In management terms, directing opera certainly prepares you for a film set: the magnitude of it, the experts in other fields that you have to call on. Both are massive ensemble jobs in which there's incredible pressure to get things done on time and on budget - so much so that making the wrong decision may be better than making no decision at all.

You can't wait for someone to discover you; you have to just get on and do it. Have confidence that directing is a very suitable job for a woman - with our gift for collaboration, listening, and reading the nuance of things.

To have Hollywood tell me or other women like me that we're not a market that interests them is silly. Good stories work.

Do as much theatre as you can while you're at school.

I think courage is commensurate with your fear - if you lack imagination and you're fearless, that's not courage to me.

In a way, 'Mamma Mia!' was such a left-field thing for me.

I realized that I didn't think I could stand the psychological battering that actors have to withstand. I just felt I wasn't cut out for that kind of self-promotion.

I wanted to be an actress from about the age of five.

'The Handmaid's Tale' is a horrifying and horrifyingly possible vision of the future.

When I began to direct, I discovered that I was much more comfortable than I was acting.

Art is all about giving yourself these terrifying challenges, these peaks to climb. You're at the bottom of the mountain at the start of every new project thinking, 'Am I going to make it?'

In the not-for-profit world, I never felt that being female was an impediment. I was, however, given my break into commercial theatre by a female producer, Judy Craymer, and women - in particular, Donna Langley, president of production at Universal - were crucial in giving 'Mamma Mia' a home in Hollywood.

I think I wanted to do something that retained the improvised chaos of 'Mamma Mia' the theatre show which set it apart from all the slick packaged productions.

It was extraordinary to experience 'Mamma Mia!' What an injection of good spirit and heart it was.

Directing is quite a nuts-and-bolts thing. It's a mixture of creating an atmosphere in which actors can feel safe enough to be dangerous.

In Europe, it is not so unusual for directors to move between opera, theatre, and film, and I have at least three girlfriends I can think of who have directed in all three genres.

I have been very lucky, and I think it all goes back to state subsidy for the arts. I gained my training and confidence and credentials in the not-for-profit world, and in England, that does not mean on the fringe of things. It means right at the centre.

In London, it's quite a rarefied activity to be on an analyst's couch.

I didn't really realize I was a woman director until I walked onto the set at Pinewood Studios when I did 'Mamma Mia!' and everybody was calling each other 'Governor' and 'Sir'... and then, looking at me, 'Well... good morning!'

One is always attracted to pieces of theatre with great roles for women.

In the theatre in the U.K., women are at the very top of the tree as freelance directors.