Celia Imrie
Celia Imrie
Celia Diana Savile Imrie is an English actress. She is known for her appearances with Victoria Wood; including Claire in Pat and Margaret, Philippa Moorcroft in Dinnerladiesand playing various characters in the sketch show Victoria Wood As Seen On TV, including Miss Babs in the spoof soap opera sketches Acorn Antiques. She reprised the role of Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques: The Musical! in 2005, and won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMovie Actress
Date of Birth15 July 1952
I long for the day where we don't have to talk about our age as actresses,
If I ever married, I know I would dread the daily sound of the key in the door and the casual expectancy of 'Hello! I'm home!
I have a horror of boring someone or, worse still, of someone boring me. I said to my mother when I was seven, 'But, Mums, if it was only my husband and me in the house together, what would we talk about?' I've never wanted to answer my own question, and doubt I'll bother now.
While other girls swooned over The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, I worshipped Rudolf Nureyev and Isadora Duncan.
Pat Phoenix kept that amazing sassy look. I always wonder, was that because she was thrilled with that look, and thought it looked marvellous, or was it because she was too scared to change it? It's a double thing. Security and insecurity.
I watch people from the top of buses who don't know they're being watched. It's quite fascinating.
I love Monet - I've nicknamed him King Blob. When you go up to the painting, it's a series of blobs - amazing.
I landed the role of Bravo 5, the only female fighter pilot in 'Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.' I did my bit and fired my guns, but I haven't a notion of which side I was on or who I was firing the guns at.
My mother Diana was a true-blue aristocrat, descended from William the Conqueror and listed in 'Burke's Peerage.' My father David, from a poor Scottish family, was a doctor.
Living as an actor is rather like living life on the trapezes in a circus. Every time you jump on, you have to pray that, when the time comes for you to jump off, there is another trapeze swinging your way.
If I look back, my mother was always out. I can remember the perfume and her scarlet chiffon dress and crystal beads, going to a party. She used to play her violin at restaurants later on in life and at old people's homes. She loved the races, which she used to take me to as a child: our carpets were bought with her winnings. Loved her chickens.
I was never a pretty girl, so I wasn't the one to get the boy. I used to cast myself as a good sport. Sometimes I wonder if I do that too much with roles I play, because if I'm absolutely truthful, I quite like being the best friend, or the supporting role, and actually I ought to gear-change and make myself the leading role.
I love not knowing what's going to happen next. With work, you never know. You rehearse and strive and get it right sometimes, and still you never know. Some people are like that with their marriages. They work and strive and labour and toil at them. God, what a bore! What an unromantic bore!
I left school the day I turned 16, the earliest day I legally could. Determined to follow a life on stage, preferably with some dance connection, I applied for and won a place at the local drama school. I was on my way.