Maggie Smith - biography

“I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it’s there and then it’s gone.”

“The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.”

“There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it’s there it’s stunning, and there is nothing to match that.”

“My career is chequered.  Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.”

“There’s a difference between solitude and loneliness.”

“Chris and Toby are far too sane to be upset any more.”

“I believe that I am past my prime.  I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.”

“I had been feeling a little rum.  I didn’t think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign.  I assumed this would be too.  It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don’t know what the future holds, if anything.”

“I like being outside and working with the elements.  The elemental aspects of it.  The physicality of it.”

“I longed to be bright and most certainly never was.  I was rather hopeless, I suspect.”

“I said ‘It can’t go on’ and he said ‘No, it can’t.’ Honestly, I don’t think I could have mattered less to him by then.  But by then, nothing mattered to him.”

“I tend to head for what’s amusing because a lot of things aren’t happy.  But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.”

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky.  Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”

“People say it gets better but it doesn’t.  It just gets different, that’s all.”

“Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.”

“The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing.  I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody.  I wouldn’t have liked that.  Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?”

“The last couple of years have been a write-off, though I’m beginning to feel like a person now.  My energy is coming back.”

“There’s this wonderful first assistant and he’ll be saying, ‘Now Harry goes down among the dragons.’ You have to hold yourself together.  Because if you lose it for a second then you’re sunk.”

“When you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”

Maggie Smith has appeared in the following films:
Child in the House (1956)
Nowhere to Go (1958)
Go to Blazes (1962)
The V.I.P.s (1963)
The Pumpkin Eater (1964)
Othello (1965)
Young Cassidy (1965)
The Honey Pot (1967)
Hot Millions (1968)
Oh! What a Lovely War (1969)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)
Travels with My Aunt (1972)
Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing (1973)
Murder by Death (1976)
California Suite (1978)
Death on the Nile (1978)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Quartet (1981)
Better Late Than Never (1982)
Evil Under the Sun (1982)
The Missionary (1982)
A Private Function (1984)
Lily in Love (1984)
A Room with a View (1985)
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)
Romeo-Juliet (1990)
Hook (1991)
Sister Act (1992)
Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993)
The Secret Garden (1993)
Richard III (1995)
The First Wives Club (1996)
Washington Square (1997)
Curtain Call (1999)
The Last September (1999)
Tea with Mussolini (1999)
Gosford Park (2001)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Ladies in Lavender. (2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Keeping Mum (2005)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Becoming Jane (2007)
From Time to Time (2009)
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010)
Gnomeo & Juliet (2011)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)