Geraldine James

I had a fabulous teacher, my headmistress's husband, who taught Shakespeare for A-level, and then I found this person called William Shakespeare and a play called 'King Lear.' The teacher took us to see it at Stratford and I remember Eric Porter, Alan Howard, Michael Williams and being completely blown away by it.

I've done a few jobs where there's a daughter, there's often a father who's positive and then there's a quite negative mother. I'm very interested in why so many of those come up.

My parents were stuck in the idea of what a marriage should be, and they divorced. So I've tried to take the word 'should' out of my vocabulary.

Jo and I have a marriage based on friendship, which means hopefully you can survive. I'm so glad we have.

The secret to a happy marriage is friendship and laughter. There's no alternative.

I remember getting out of bed at night and sitting on the stairs listening to my parents arguing and wishing I had the courage to ask them to stop.