Kristin Scott Thomas Quotations

In fact, in many ways my mother was quite hippy-dippy, serving macrobiotic food and reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'

I just get so fed up with seeing the same things written about me. If I see the words 'ice queen' attached to me, I feel like banging my head against the wall. There's this perception that I can only be in a film if I have a glass of champagne in my hand and a stately home in the background.

There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.

It doesn't make you feel very good being mean and fierce; it is much nicer playing people who are kind and sweet.

Life is too short to live on low-fat everything.

I'm not at all fed up with British films, but I am fed up with playing upper-class people.

I am so bored with seeing stories about a mature man of 65 falling in love with a beautiful girl of 32.

If anyone says, 'Let's have a girls' night out,' I will run in the opposite direction.

At school, I always wanted to belong to a gang, and no one would have me. So I'd have make my own gang, but with everybody else's leftovers.

If you're feeling insecure and you need to feel special, the best place to go is somewhere foreign where people treat you as special because you're different.

I've realised that I am who I am and that is it. Like it or lump it. I'm not around to please anyone any more, and it's a huge relief.

We older women in Europe are lucky not to be shoved away in a drawer.

Most films seem to be about a man and a women falling in love at some point and once you pass forty-five, it's almost disgusting to fall in love.

As an adult, it's a huge shock to be orphaned; as a child it's just hideous, ghastly.

French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries.

I try to make films that I find exciting. It makes me want to get out of bed at five in the morning, have my make-up done and play for the rest of the day.

Having a leading man who is actually prettier than you are is quite upsetting.

I don't want to have to be pretty. I don't want to have to be adorable.

I know I can be bolshy and really unpleasant, and it always happens if I lose confidence in the people I'm working with. If I've got no confidence in what I'm doing and they don't provide me with some assurance that we're doing the right thing then I bully people. I'm a horrible bully.

I used to be so intensely preoccupied by unhappiness... now there are times where you might get down, but you can move on much faster now.

Now, playing a love interest can be really thrilling, if you're working opposite thrilling people.

When I speak English, I've been told, I have this patrician way of speaking that's very irritating. It's the whole class thing.

I can't get into all that physical stuff of having to have flawless skin... Sometimes you see people and it looks like someone's got an eraser and made their face a little blurry - their traits seem to go out of focus.

If you make a film about a pig farmer in Wales and you are a huge hit as the pig farmer's wife, the next thing is you'll be asked to do a film about a sheep farmer in Scotland.

The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.

I'm not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I'm too feeble.

I do not want to pour out my heart to the world. I am cautious of what I say and to whom.

We all come in different shapes and sizes, and that's fine by me.

Baths are my favorite thing. I can have two, three a day.

I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.

I'm a bit of a Doubting Thomas - always worrying about things.

I am sure that, had I grown up with both parents, had I grown up in a safe environment, had I grown up with a feeling of safety rather than danger, I would not be the way I am.

French is a foreign language, but I've been speaking it since I was 18 so it's second nature to me.

I never go straight to the point if I can go the most difficult way. Why be simple when you can be complicated?

Exoticism can give you an edge: it makes people assume you're cleverer than you are and gives you the upper hand.

I have never met a woman who works who doesn't feel guilty. I mean we all deny it like crazy but deep down there is always that voice saying you should be at home.

I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating.

Making films can be absolutely fantastic, but it can also be incredibly dull. You spend the whole day sitting by yourself in your trailer and then you get called to deliver one sentence - then you're told to come back and do it again at 5:30 the following morning.

People accuse me of being Methody, but I'm not at all. The one thing I don't want people to see is me. I don't want them to be able to recognize my faults and failures and qualities, and I won't use those things to spark off emotions or to illustrate.

People are always saying, English, English, English rose, and I just feel so completely different.

I mean, my father was killed when I was six. And I only have tiny, tiny flashes of memory.

I think people do work too much. I've never been able to understand the whole 'make hay while the sun shines' thing. Either I want to work or I don't want to work.

Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

It takes a long time to appreciate one's parents.

After a long time with someone, you realise you've been thinking for two.

If you are a successful actor, which is what I am, then you tend to get labelled very quickly and easily.

Buy, buy, buy, buy! They want to grab you and trap you and turn you into little Elizabeth Hurleys.

Having a career is a bit like navigating an Atlantic crossing - you have to make sure everything is keeping and is balanced.

I can't move back to England. My home is in France now. I'd love to but I can't. My family's all there now.

I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.

I do consider myself as being French, I suppose.

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress.

I find it very difficult to be two different characters at the same time - actress and mother.

I just don't see very many films. Because I make them.

I know people think that I always play these characters who are in control and can chop someone's head off with a look.

I like the idea that I'm making things that people might think and argue about.

I still absolutely love 'The Sound of Music' and anything with Julie Andrews in it.

I tend to do things that I'm very frightened of. That's what I do.

I think in most jobs, you get better as you get older. You gain experience, you gain knowledge.

I think the sheer number of pop stars has kind of drowned out, somewhat, our interest. We're just submerged.

I was very lost as a teenager. Which is a horrible way to feel.

I wouldn't want you to see me all the time on the screen, because I get bored of it myself!

I'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms.

It's very hard having a career in different continents and two different languages.

Men don't fall in love with me - only young ones.

Often, the roles I'm offered in England are melancholic women who are filled with regret for the past, regret for their fading beauty.

The parts I've been most successful in are the ones I've desperately, desperately wanted.

You don't choose a film because it's made by a woman, you choose it because it's good.

You have to think about whether that Mercedes-Benz you have is actually worth how much it costs to you.

As a younger actor you want to be approved of, you want to gain respect, be admired. All of those things. To say: 'This is me playing this character. And aren't I fantastic!' I don't feel that so much now.

As actors, we're always asked to portray and react to these extreme circumstances, otherwise it's not interesting. They are agonizing things to think about.

I have a feeling I will work for a long, long time. I like it a lot... and I don't know. I just have a feeling that I'm going to be one of those people who go on for ever.

I really like acting in French. It's actually quite different for me, from acting in English. It's fun acting in a foreign language. You're liberated or freed from preconceptions.

I was happy, I wasn't beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasn't what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I don't know how my mother did it.

I'm not used to being asked what I want to talk about. That's why I'm an actress. Get told what to do, stand on the mark, say your words, wear this, look this way, look that way.

People will now go to films with subtitles, you know. They're not afraid of them. It's one of the upsides of text-messaging and e-mail. Maybe the only good thing to come of it.

Sometimes, I think I could have been a major movie star with the vast mansion and staff. I look at my Volvo and think it could be a limousine. I think of the roles I turned down. But then I wouldn't have had any children.

'The English Patient' was a huge turning point in my career and my life; it became this huge thing. But the whole Oscar build-up got completely out of control; I spent more time talking about that film than I spent making it!

The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.

When you make a film, you sign a contract with somebody, and it's not only legally binding but morally binding. You agree to give this man a certain number of weeks of your life, and you just go for it as much as possible. Because, whatever happens, the film is going to come out, so you might as well try very hard to make it a good one.

With the theatre, your whole day is geared towards the evening's show, and that's the job. People usually go to work about 9 and come home around 5, or maybe 7.

Films are just consumables.

I was happy, I wasnt beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasnt what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I dont know how my mother did it.

Movies make you immortal and ageless.

I'm very good at forgetting people.

My children are lovely. They're perfect.

I was terrible at school.

I never raise my voice!

My body is a baby machine.

I'm a late developer.

Everyone loves to hate a spin doctor.

Boarding school is a wicked thing.

Successful films are very dangerous things.

You know those drugstore kits that tell you when you're pregnant? They should have one that tells you when you're sane.

I'm very wary of trust, you see.