Top 70 Maxine Peake Quotes

I went to the Old Bailey, and I met a judge, and I was petrified, but they were like, ‘Oh, you’re an actor, well, great.’ It was a bit like we’re cut from the same cloth a little bit.

If I were to appear in a programme like ‘Sex and the City,’ I’m sure I’d be cast as the downtrodden one staying at home and having seven children while the others jet-setted around the world.

I love hoovering. People go to therapists; I’ve got a Hoover.

I get angry about the way women are forced and bullied into what the male ideal is.

What is male and what is female? I don’t always feel female.

I used to think the store detective had followed me all the way home and would knock on the door and go, ‘Hello, is this your daughter? She’s got three blue lipsticks and a moisturiser from Boots in her bag.’ We just used to nick crap. Not even stuff we wanted.

I think you can tell a lot by someone’s footwear – cowboy boots would put me off, as would a man in Ugg boots or Crocs.

I get very irate with actors when they talk about how distressing it all is. I mean, it’s only acting. Please.

There aren’t that many great female roles in Shakespeare – none that I’d be desperate to play.

After my mum and dad got divorced, I was entitled to free school dinners, but my mum said, ‘Under no circumstances,’ because she was proud.

I don’t really engage with that world of technology, which might be to my detriment.

I was told, ‘Your career’s made by what you don’t do,’ and that always stuck with me. I drive my agent mad!

We need a wider sense of community because we’re all on the same planet.

I’m very independent, probably quite selfish, and like being able to disappear at the drop of a hat without having to explain myself – most men would find that a pain, wouldn’t they?

The ‘Bolton News’ is the best place for online comments. They say I’m an absolute idiot and a communist anarchist. I was never an anarchist; I was a communist!

You want to go to your deathbed saying, ‘I didn’t sell out.’ But it’s a tough business to keep to what you believe in and get through and do well.

It’s interesting when people say, ‘You always play strong women,’ because as far as I’m concerned, women are strong. I think that’s what women are. We have got that vulnerability, but we have got that strength. We are survivors.

In my 20s, I was going round seeing agents who were patronising because I was fat and a girl, which was a double whammy. I knew what it was to feel out-of-the-loop.

Often, when I am playing difficult roles, I have a problem sleeping because I can’t leave the character behind.

I actually used to compete at show-jumping when I was a young’un.

I’m quite cautious in most areas of my life, but I’m always happy to gamble when it comes to acting. I’m not frightened of falling on my face.

When I was a little girl, there was this unbelievably cool female bus driver who’d work near us. I remember thinking I’d like to be her when I grew up.

I think an actor’s process should be very personal and private, and sometimes I have thought, ‘Oh, please, put it away now.’

I’m inspired by films from the early ’50s, especially Jean Simmons in ‘The Clouded Yellow’ – and by vintage swing, psychobilly gigs, sea shanties, and English folklore.

I wasn’t an obvious actress in any sense of the word.

Pay in the acting world hasn’t kept up with inflation.

For me, politics is about passion. It doesn’t matter what you know; it’s your actions that count. I meet people who say they’re socialists, and that’s not what they carry out in their everyday life.

For me, I’m still always that kid from Bolton.

When I graduated, I was my biggest ever: 15 stone, with a boyfriend – my first – of just 11 stone. I was 23 years old. It wasn’t just affecting my career: it was a health issue as well.

I didn’t have my first serious boyfriend until I was 23. Then after that, I went out with a guy I’d been best friends with all through drama school.

I went to Salford Tech. They did a two-year performing arts course. I went there singing and dancing – I had a terrible time. I turned up in green dungarees and German power boots. I was into prog rock at the time – Gong and Hawkwind – and I was clumping around.

I take bits and pieces from everything. But I think the Method can be very isolating, and sometimes it’s more about ego than playing the character truthfully.

I watch ‘Take Me Out’ mainly for Paddy McGuinness. When we were younger, we worked together as lifeguards at the Bolton Leisure Centre.

You don’t want to bash viewers over the head with a blunt message or lecture them – they’d soon get bored with that.

Every job still feels like the first time.

Crying does not equal good acting.

I find these dramas fascinating – it’s a world that many of us fortunately don’t dip into. The legal system is all around us, but the majority of us don’t have to go into a court, so it’s a way into another world that is unusual.

I don’t have massive ambitions to be anywhere other than in this country doing good work.

They always said to me that I needed to be more feminine. I think it’s so wrong. Being boisterous doesn’t mean you are not feminine.

I do, in a strange way, care deeply what people think.

I think all things are political… How women are portrayed – that’s a big thing for me. What is this role trying to say about women? Is this woman weak or victimised, and, if so, do we get to understand why?

The first posh meal out I had was on my 10th birthday.

Sometimes the darker the work, the more fun you can have.

What’s wrong with wanting the best for everybody?

I’d rather go down with an almighty bang than play it safe.

I left the North when I was 21 to go to drama school in London, and I stayed there 12 years.

People think I’m clever, which is hilarious. I’m like, ‘When did this happen? People used to think I couldn’t string a sentence together.’

Sometimes it feels like the feminist movement never happened.

I joined the Communist Party when I was 18. When I was 10, there was the miners’ strike, and the Cold War was going on; it was quite a potent time to get involved in politics. I got involved through my grandfather, who was a member.

My kind of work is very intense. The trouble with me is that I completely fling myself into it. I get giddy. I get terrible crushes on jobs.

I know I sometimes come across as being quite dismissive about acting. But I’m not. It’s like people reading their diaries in public. I don’t want to talk about how I create characters. I find it self-indulgent.

Male? Female? It’s not always relevant to some people. They are who they are – they might not fit into a specific box.

When we were doing ‘Criminal Justice,’ they were filming ‘Clash of the Titans’ nearby and we kept nicking off to their catering tent and going, ‘Look what they’ve got!’

I am an actor. I love acting, and I absolutely love what I do, but I don’t want it to be every waking hour.

‘Toast of London’ is a must-watch. Matt Berry’s off-the-wall humour is slightly surreal and a little bit deviant. That’s why I also love ‘House of Fools.’

I think with ‘Silk’ there’s something there for everyone: it’s a legal drama, but it’s human as well – you get to dip into the lives of the barristers and clerks.

I’m a big comfort eater, so if I’m feeling sorry for myself, I’ll just stuff my face.

I get easily distracted and become a bit of a giddy giggler. I’m not good at taking myself seriously, and laughing at myself helps ease the pressure.

I’m not a fan of reality TV.

I’m always an advocate of ‘acting is reacting,’ which can be difficult.

I’m a big techphobe. Someone else helps me run my Twitter; I wouldn’t be able to trust myself.

We take things at face value, don’t we? You form an opinion about something immediately, but you ought to step back a bit. Take in the vista first.

I was a tomboy. In my clubbing days, my friend Lucy Davies-Hunt – half-Iranian, looked like Yasmin Le Bon – could wear catsuits, while I was the one in the sweatshirt, jeans, and Fila boots.

I’ve always had pop-star crushes. I had a huge crush on Ian Brown.

I look up to the older generation of men – Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn – but my main role model has been my step-granddad Jim. He’s brilliant, very political, quite eccentric.

The films, the music, the telly that I like is always a little bit more on the margins.

At drama school, I was told, ‘Lay off the chips, or you’ll never play Juliet.’ Sometimes, in the stock room of the set of ‘Dinnerladies,’ I’d put away three or four Mars bars while waiting for a scene. Then, at 24, I lost five stone.

I care about my work, but I don’t care about getting it wrong. The more you do, the more you realise nobody’s going to die.

Nobody’s impressed back home. All my friends were going, ‘Oh right, so you’re doing a play up in Leeds? Another depressing one is it? Do you mind if we don’t bother coming?’ I love that.

I must admit I don’t usually buy a daily paper, although I will get one if there’s an interview I want to read.