There was a guy called Carlos Thompson, who was I think Argentinian, and he was doing a series called 'Sentimental Agent'. That was the very first thing that I did. It was supposed to be taking place in some exotic location, but in actual fact, it was Chertsey with a few shivering potted palms.

Do you know, I have no idea how I got 'The Avengers'? I'd left the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I was one of a long list of girls, and got it on my audition.

You'll always be close to somebody that you worked with very intimately for so long, and you become really fond of each other.

In actual fact, I doubled 'Twelfth Night' and 'The Avengers'. I was going backwards and forwards to Stratford. I played matinees Wednesday, matinee and evenings Saturdays, and the other days of the week, I was filming in Elstree.

I think Thespis just wanted to be a solo player, you know?

I come from a generation which definitely treated anyone older and more successful with reverence. But it's much more democratic nowadays.

I've been single forever, and, oh God, I love every minute of it. I don't wish to sound offensive, and it always does when women say that, doesn't it?

It may be a masculine attitude to take lovers, but it's definitely prevalent. I'm certainly not the oldest person doing it - not that I'm doing it right now, but when I was.

I never get lonely; even as a child, I didn't.

If you have a good inner life, you don't get lonely. I've got a good imagination. I don't miss romance.

To all the younglings I come across in 'Game of Thrones' who suddenly find themselves well known, I say the theatre is your best friend - they will remember you.

I read prodigiously as a child, and I still do.

I was nourished and nurtured at Stratford as a very young actress. They guided me and forgave me!

We have no companies now, not in the sense that I know, that nurture actors. It's very depressing that, given the money they get, the companies today don't number up in my estimation. They should be bringing on young talent, and they don't.

I rely upon the directors to fill me in before a shot.

I loved the idea of playing this naughty old bag, offering her own explanation. It's my idea of heaven.

I'm so lucky. I could be sitting at home crumbling, but I'm not.

I think I'm a mousepad. I don't want to be a mousepad, but I'm a mousepad. I'm also a screen saver, thank you very much. It's weird.

In the old days, a star was someone up there - you know, Greta Garbo - but a telly star was somebody you could approach.

I didn't know what to do with the fan mail. I had a little mini, and I used to put it at the back of my mini, and it grew and grew.

'Game of Thrones' is wonderful. My theory is they employ all these British actors because, one, they are like me and grateful. Two, we turn up, and we know our lines. Three, we don't demand a 60 ft. Winnebago and PA, and four, largely we are very uncomplaining.

I never relied on my beauty for anything. It was one of those things that was inevitable; you have a bit of philosophy about it. I didn't go into mourning.

There is a life after being at the pinnacle of your beauty. Plenty of life and fun.

Working keeps me young. Anything that exercises the brain like learning lines.

I think politicians misjudge our intelligence. We can, and do, see through them. But I quite enjoy watching political programmes because they get the heart going.

I wouldn't like to see a female Bond, because we wouldn't want to lose the Bond girls. But we could have a lesbian Bond - why not?

When I started, TV was regarded as something that wasn't as great as film or theatre or radio, but it has proved to have far greater powers than those.

It's a very powerful medium now, and should be celebrated as such, because we have the greatest television in the world.

I don't have it in for critics, and I never have.

Critics have to sit through an awful lot of rubbish, and you feel really sorry for them. In fact, I've been in a play where I felt sorry for the critics.

We depend on the critics to give us a glimpse of what happened. Bernard Shaw championed Ibsen, who got the most terrible notices for his plays. Kenneth Tynan championed young writers, and as a result, the theatre has changed radically.

I'm really grateful for 'Game of Thrones'. It's something wonderful to happen to an actress of my age, and Dubrovnik is astonishingly beautiful.

All these old images of me floating across the screen, the terrible chasm of what you were and what you are. I know who I am, but these people who see me as I was then don't.

There is always one thing that turns you into an icon, an iconic image: in my case, a catsuit. But the icon 40 years later doesn't really want to know because it's not relevant to me.

Some of those early photographs of me might as well be sepia. It's always thought that I disclaim television and am too theatre, but the truth is 'The Avengers' bores me now. I was grateful because it catapulted me into stage stardom. It was good. I'm not ashamed of it. But I only did it for two years.

I step into a character in my public life. People who don't make that distinction are dooooomed.

I confess I do a lot of the wrong things: I smoke, and I drink wine, and people might be horrified at my eating habits - I eat when I'm hungry, and if I'm not, I don't.

I regard bed as my best friend.

Many years ago, when I was working on Broadway, I used to go to a drug rehabilitation centre on Sundays. I didn't lecture them against the perils of drug-taking; I gave them drama therapy.

When my marriage broke up, I went to three separate therapists, and each was worse than the last. I can only speak for myself. There are other people it's been incredibly useful for, but not me.

If a man holds a door open for me or pulls back a chair so that this old bag can sit down, I'm delighted.

It's a question of economics. If you're paid the same as a man, which now you are in this profession, you're equal.

I love women but am aware we're dangerous and deeply competitive, although I gave up being competitive long ago.

You hand the baton on, and that's why roles like 'Medea' resonate for years and years, as each new actor comes to it.

'Medea' is an enormous challenge for an actor physically, mentally, emotionally. You have to dig very, very deep, and to work, your performance has to be very personal.

Most of the women in Greek tragedies have their fates predetermined. The gods dictate that such and such will happen to them, and everything they predict comes true. Not Medea.

It's particularly exhausting because Medea is defined by her determination. The role is all about endeavour.

I have always thought of myself as rather a happy person. Apart from a few knocks along the way, I consider myself to have been extremely lucky.

I don't generally give interviews unless I have to promote a play and had sworn years ago, having been bitten once too often, never to be interviewed by a woman again.

It tends to be overlooked that many people are indirectly affected by thoughtless and cruel journalism.