She was just Ma, and I didn't grow up in some kind of acting dynasty: Orson Welles didn't come round and give me a piggyback; Vivien Leigh never read me a bedtime story. It was just my mum and our housekeeper, whom I adored, and after that, it was boarding school.

Rachael Stirling

'Ambitious' is seen as a dirty word, especially when it comes to women. But what being ambitious actually means is to achieve distinction in your chosen field.

Rachael Stirling

I remember typing up my dissertation sitting in a horse box - I didn't qualify for a caravan - on a set in Pinewood on my first film, 'Still Crazy.'

Rachael Stirling

I feel sexier in my 40s than I did in my 20s and 30s.

Rachael Stirling

I always hate it when I hear actors talking about the process of what they do, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself.

Rachael Stirling

If you get asked to play a part that makes you feel frightened, then you have to do it. 'Medea' is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Rachael Stirling

I eat healthily, I do ballet and exercise, and I'm toned and tight, but I take up space, and I don't aspire to anorexia.

Rachael Stirling

I think if I'd been born ten years earlier when Ma was at the height of 'Avengers' fame, it would have been a different kettle of fish altogether, but she was very much a ma first and an actress second for my formative years.

Rachael Stirling

You're in this heightened emotional state from the beginning of the play. It's like when you first have your heart broken.

Rachael Stirling

I suppose I'm what you'd called a character actress, so, often, my characters are quite extreme.

Rachael Stirling

I woke up famous for about a minute, then stopped being famous again.

Rachael Stirling

I had been kind of quite porky and happy at boarding school and not self-conscious at all; then, suddenly, I found myself in auditions being examined, and it made me angry.

Rachael Stirling

I fell upon Jenny Saville's work and loved these great big pieces she was painting, celebrating all things flesh and woman, and with great big Simone Beauvoir quotations written in mirror writing so you had to look at yourself in the pictures to read them.

Rachael Stirling

I always like a character who makes me laugh.

Rachael Stirling

If I'd been an actor in the 1940s, I would have been in fashion.

Rachael Stirling

I won't change the way I talk for anyone. I'll do it for work but not because I think someone will like me more if I take the edge off.

Rachael Stirling

The tabloids had a field day with 'Tipping The Velvet,' which was great for the viewing figures but not necessarily for the actors involved.

Rachael Stirling

I teach kids to read on a Saturday for this charity called Real Action. It's a voluntary school because lots of the kids around my area of London are from immigrant families and need extra help with reading.

Rachael Stirling

I find the idea that some kids go into acting because of their parents butt-clenchingly embarrassing. I've gone out of my way to prove myself as a separate being. I don't want to be seen as a subset of someone else.

Rachael Stirling

Kristin Scott Thomas is terrific. She has a career in France and a career in England: how cool is that? I wouldn't mind that.

Rachael Stirling

I love radio interviews; it's all about multitasking and, like all good women, I can do that.

Rachael Stirling