Kristin Scott Thomas Biography

“People have always told me I was beautiful, but beauty isn't the same as attractiveness and I don't think I have ever been attractive . . . My sister Serena is beautiful and attractive, but not me.”

“The parts I've been most successful in are the ones I've desperately, desperately wanted. One of them being Four Weddings. I couldn't think of anyone better for that part than me. And the other was The English Patient. Occasionally, you read scripts and, well, there you are on the page.”

“I'm 47 - unlike most actresses, I don't lie about my age - but I'm liking this bit. I love it. I wouldn't swap it for a million years.”

“Buy, buy, buy, buy! They want to grab you and trap you and turn you into little Elizabeth Hurleys.”

“Have you ever been to the proper desert? The most extraordinary thing is the silence. There's nothing to move out there. I got such a buzz out of it.”

“Having a leading man who is actually prettier than you are is quite upsetting.”

“I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress.”

“I find it very difficult to be two different characters at the same time - actress and mother.”

“I never go straight to the point if I can go the most difficult way. Why be simple when you can be complicated?”

“I was happy, I wasn't beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasn't what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I don't know how my mother did it.”

“I'm not at all fed up with British films, but I am fed up with playing upper-class people.”

“If you're feeling insecure and you need to feel special, the best place to go is somewhere foreign where people treat you as special because you're different.”

“Movies make you immortal and ageless.”

“People accuse me of being Methody, but I'm not at all. The one thing I don't want people to see is me. I don't want them to be able to recognise my faults and failures and qualities, and I won't use those things to spark off emotions or to illustrate.”

“Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.”

“There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.”