Ashley Jensen Quotations

I was in King Lear with Sir Tom Courtenay at The Royal Exchange in Manchester. In fact, that's where I met my husband. I was playing Regan and he was playing Cornwall and together we fell in love plucking out Gloucester's eyes. It was great fun. Everyone assumes that I was Cordelia because I've got blonde hair but I was Regan and they gave me a long auburn wig. It was great, good fun.

I think we should be proud of the fact that our face has got lines, because at least that means we have lived.

I think because I did become a well-known face in my thirties and not in my twenties, I was pretty settled in my boots and I knew who I was. And I think there's a sort of Scottish thing, too, where you don't take yourself too seriously, and you don't get carried away with your own sense of self-importance.

There was actually a camera on your face. I don't know so much about the animation process but the camera was in our face so it could get expressions from our faces that would eventually arrive on the gnomes. It almost felt like you were cheating at times because it was a wee bit too much fun. You were in that box on your own. Kelly [Asbury] was in Toronto, I was in LA, so I was just on my own. I thought: "I can't be getting paid for this as well!"

I wanted to live where I could pop to the bar that Humphrey Bogart took Lauren Bacall to, or the little restaurant where Charlie Chaplin had a booth.

I think that children that are acting are always pretty savvy anyway because you're conducting yourself around adults a lot of the time, aren't you? But there is this worry now that children just want to be famous.

My mum Margaret was a single parent, but though life was a bit of a struggle she gave me every encouragement.

I always felt slightly grubbier than most American people. I was never quite as groomed as everyone else, never quite as fit as anyone else. I didn't have my protein shake and my vitamins.

I always knew I wanted to be an actor, certainly from the age of eight or nine. I think when you know what you want to do, you're very lucky because you've got a focus.

Life's too short to worry about injecting botulism into your face to get rid of a tiny line because you've laughed too much. To me, that's a bit warped.