Hayley Atwell Quotes

My accent does slip. When I arrived in England in 1978 at 18, I was shocked to find myself 'the American' at RADA. The English and the Americans have an intense relationship. They helped us out in the Second World War.

I have no idea what a British sensibility or a British sense of humor is. I have no concept of what that is. I have no concept of what American sensibility is. I was born in Great Britain, but I was only there for six months, and we moved to Belgium, where I grew up. I love Britain, I lived there for nine years doing shows and things, but I don't know what a British sensibility is. I'd like to have someone tell me what an American sensibility is.

We've had American TV shows in Britain for years and that hasn't affected our culture at all.

I haven't met everyone from all different cultures, but I do know Aussies are very tough.

My experience of Chinese culture is indirect, through echoes. When I approach the cashier at my local Chinese supermarket, they switch to English before I've even said a word. They somehow know that I'm not quite Chinese enough.

I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.

New Zealand is the only country I know well enough to write about. It can sometimes lead to complications.

I don't really have that much contact with Americans. I mean, I see the oddest things on the Internet, I suppose. And I've got a couple of American friends, but they are Anglophiles anyway because they've decided to come live here.

China is a company of contradictions. Nothing is what it appears to be. We have to be extremely respectful when we go overseas.

I love Europe, but I don't want America to become like Europe.

I feel as much British as I do American. There's not much difference between our countries.

I've grown up surrounded by Americans and to a very large extent feel American. It sounds strange because I seem to be so quintessentially English in everyone's mind - and perhaps I am. Perhaps it's quintessentially English to have a fascination with America.

I never felt particularly alienated as an English person in America. It doesn't feel culturally like a massive gap to me.

We cannot just ape the west. What may be good in an alien country may be unpalatable in India.

I was raised in France, and the American culture was present everywhere. On TV, on the radio.

The English are very exotic to me.

Australia is so influenced by America. It's kind of in-between the U.K. and the States.

To me it's very obvious there are huge cultural differences between Americans and Canadians. But a lot of what we are is American.

We, Brits, need to be sort of loosened up. And there's some transfer overseas, I think the more American fare that comes to the U.K., the more cross-fertilization there is that's perhaps changing.

When I've seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can't tell you what that phenomenon is.

Even though I spent the first five years of my life in Nagasaki, going to Japan can be really difficult. Even if they know I've been brought up in the West, they still expect me to understand all the subtleties of their culture, and if I get it wrong, it matters much more than if a British person gets it wrong. I find it intimidating.

In Australia, we cling on to whatever culture we have. We're such a multicultural country.

I feel a little schizophrenic because my life is so totally different from here, obviously. And the French values are so different from American values.

What they fear, I think rightly, is that traditional Vietnamese society cannot survive the American economic and cultural impact.

Now, I know it's a widespread assumption in the West that as countries modernize, they also westernize. This is an illusion. It's an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not. It is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West.