Dame Diana Rigg | Full Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] thank you jack thanks to my toy boy so damn done it's a pleasure to be joining you this evening I wondered if we could start really at the start of your career and your day's dinner a flippin even and I wondered if we could start by asking what was it like to have the opportunity for five years to be able to express yourself learn the craft in such a safe and yet challenging environment well to begin with I I started in repertory in Chesterfield before I got distracted I had always wanted to go to Stratford but I did a certain amount of apprenticeship being a stage manager in Chesterfield rep and it was deep it was incredibly valuable one of the most valuable experiences was when you were on the book in a play and on the book means you're prompting and I was also playing a part so I was in costume prior to going on to make my entrance and then somebody would come and take the prompt book from me and I'd go and and play my part and at the side of me I had the the lighting cues or in amber standby read for go and all the cues were written into the prompt book and behind me was something called a panna trope which was in fact a turntable with an arm and it had records on it with all various sound effects car arriving car leaving all music and at the end of the play I would stand up and pull the curtain and I was in Broadway last year on Broadway rather in a musical and the stage management were there with their headphones and their walkie-talkies and sort of glinting lights communicating all over the theater with all the people who were working in the theater and I told them about my experience as a stage manager and they simply could not believe it that at one stage as a 19 year old I was doing what they were doing and I was in fact in charge of the production and there were very many moments that I look back on with great pleasure not least of which was when we were doing an Agatha Christie play and I was supposed to play on the panet rope as the curtain came down on the first act the ride of the Valkyries and I'd got the wrong record on the turntable and it turned out to be Jimmy SH and in his dancing dustman so that was my preparation to going to Stratford and when I ventually reached Stratford which was after a year of repertory I was incredibly lucky because it was the last year of the director he was called Glen Byam Shaw and he was he decided to go out with a bang so he was inviting a huge and stellar cast of people the first production was a fellow I was a walk-on by the way I was not even playing small parts I was simply a walk-on in all these productions and what a privilege that was and the first production was a solo with Paul Robeson playing as hello and Mary your Sam Wanamaker was playing Iago and Albert Finney was in it a plane a small part listening to that text with Paul Robeson this obsolete store gnashing voice was amazing the second production was Midsummer Night's Dream with chow Lawton paying bottom the third production was Laurence Olivier in Coriolanus with de medias Evans Vanessa Redgrave was playing a small part if you can imagine that was how I learned by watching and listening and I couldn't have had better teachers because each night you moved a little difference in a performance and different inflection and each night you were hearing can summon actors dealing with verse and the way they dealt with it the way they turned it to their use to their personal use still observing the verse but but making it entirely personal within the character was a very profound early lesson for me do you think those same opportunities as experiences are there today for young actors or has the industry changed well unfortunately there it has changed and what happened later on at Stratford was that after Glen Byam Shaw left Peter Hall stepped in he was young and extraordinary passionate and she instigated lessons in verse speaking lessons in movement lessons in singing and he actually nurtured young talent something which has never been done subsequently alas and something that I benefited from immeasurably companies such as that was in those days don't exist anymore it's it's shifting and they don't take people on and train them up allow them to fail I have to say I have failed any times in my profession and I'm being perfectly honest with you when I tell you that I learn more from within my failures than I ever learned from my successes so actors in those days were given the license to fail and I think that has now disappeared and you credit the longevity of your successful career to that classical training I credit it to that classical training to the desire to learn and keep learning and experimenting and throwing yourself into whatever next came III didn't have a route I didn't have an ambition in fact I had a dear friend I know for 50 years and I once I don't know somebody had asked me a question and I started to question myself and I said to him was I ambitious and he said no no you weren't you were just grateful and I think it's true I've just always been grateful for whatever has been offered me and and if it expanded me in a way anyway I would embrace it because there is simply no point in standing still in whatever you do you you have to keep moving and learning so would that be your advice to any up-and-coming actors today simply to take whatever opportunities oh absolutely and don't look down on anything it may be rubbish but you might learn from it you might learn something from other actors and and you're out in front of an audience I mean always remember what's the point of staying at home waiting for the part the best thing you can do is to go out and and and practice and perform in front of an audience or a television camera or a film camera then you've said before that when you moved into television the actors at the RSC despised genius then you're despised for leaving and going to television yeah well Peter hore said oh she's gonna waste herself on stupid television but what they didn't understand because those were early days and it perfectly justified remark on his part was that television has become the huge generator of talent which then feeds back into the theater I mean it's completely cyclical now you can start in the theater and move into television that's the first thing I did when I was famous and I could put bums on seats it was after the I think it was the first season of the Avengers and I went back to Stratford and I did Twelfth Night and I was actually playing Avengers I was filming Avengers Monday Tuesday and and I'd go to Stratford and do Wednesday matinee and evening and Saturday matinee and evening in Twelfth Night and I have to say it was correct because it was both sides of the spectrum it wasn't either end it was absolutely wonderful do you think it's easier to start in the theatre and learn the classical trade and then move into television I don't think there's any I don't think there's any prescribed route it just depends on you and how lucky you are I mean I was immensely lucky that I I'd been five years at Stratford I mean I'd been a year in in rep and then I went to Stratford and I was there for five years and then I got this television job and then I went back to Stratford and from then on I was off and running because the Avengers had catapulted me into sort of I was famous which it would have taken me 20 years on them on the stage to reach that degree of fame if that so television is incredibly powerful incredibly important but let's not forget it's sort of restrictive as well and you've got to keep your options open and my belief is for longevity you have to go back to the theatre because theatre audiences are the most faithful audiences war so do you think that then with the Avengers and then moving into James Bond did you any point whilst doing that fear that you were getting to be typecast you're going down a certain Road that would be hard to come back from well not with the Avengers yes I could have been but then I went back to the theater and I did a couple of televisions and then I did the James Bond and I mean if everybody asks about it I know I knew exactly what I was why I been cast I I was there George Lazenby was he had no experience in acting I think he'd just done advertisements and and I was there as a professional to sort of guide him through which I was very happy to do up to a point it didn't end entirely happily as you probably know although the film itself is much loved I mean and George was he was pretty good but he was just extraordinarily difficult and so he didn't they didn't ask him back and he I think he must be must deeply regret it because he truly wasn't bad at all then was it hard dealing with the advent of fame that came with the Avengers and James Bond or did you take to it naturally no I didn't look you don't know now that in those days all the huge publicity machine that concentrates on television stars now it didn't exist in those days at all so to be well-known was a very strange experience and to be recognized was a very strange experience and coming from Yorkshire as I did to be called a sex symbol was absolutely extraordinary and I simply didn't know how to handle it because you didn't talk about sex in Yorkshire everyone still nest flaunt your sexuality so I was not very good at floating and and rather sort of walked away from that aspect of my fame yes people nowadays I mean it's it's it's such a different world that it's it's without sounding dreadfully old-fashioned it's very very hard to explain for example the young there were no there were no jeans no you you were dressed as a middle-aged lady I was you know you wore skirts and twin sets there were sort of dresses call Horrocks that you'd wear in the summertime which middle-aged ladies still wear that they're the only thing is available to you there was no pop music not really Chubby Checker that was about it so um it was it was completely different and I was in those days completely at sea so you said before again that you feel we felt uncomfortable becoming a sex symbol yeah how to deal with it do you think the industry today has moved further down that road that it over centralizes women and young active well I'd say it's a choice it's a choice you can either go into it and use it and a lot of young actresses do and as a result are very successful or you say I have certain priorities and my sexuality isn't top of my list my profession as an actress is and that is the part of me that I wish to concentrate on and that is the part of me that I will develop do you think it's hard for young female actresses to turn down the chance for fame in that way and then having to pursue as you said maybe a longer time in theater and a longer time down in the craft if the opportunities are arriving more say than them is well I think you could be sidetracked and I think possibly it requires strength of character to to maintain keep in sight what it is you want not necessarily an end product of fame or whatever but to know yourself know how far you have to develop how much of yourself should be developed the voice for example I did years ago I did my dad which was very testing huge areas a for speeches one after the other page after page and I developed a voice which I didn't know it at the time but somebody said was in its spoken range as almost as big as a singing voice and I knew it's very interesting because the vocal cords respond to your thought you think of a note and the chords accommodate it that's what singing is about they're thinking ahead and the chords accommodated and the same things happen if you're doing a speech so the chords have to be trained in order to sustain the chords you need breath control and that in itself is an art I mean in the old days a lot of the old actors could do a sonnet they could do 14 lines on one breath that was the test and I remember the other big part that I did was really demanding was fair drew and Ted Hughes did the adaptation it was wonderful and I played it with Barbara Jeffords who was the classical actress and she was playing the nurse beside me and there was a passage in the play that I knew should to do it justice be spoken on one breath and I I kind of picked it out as something to aim for something to succeed in during the run of the play and I kind of stalked it and bit by bit by bit by bit got closer and closer until suddenly one night bingo I'd got it and as we came off the stage Barbara turned to me and said well done and she'd I know that what she done was put herself in the same place and said this is the way in this particular passage has to be spoken and we had that sort of wonderful tacit understanding of an older generation recognizing what the younger generation was trying to do in order to in order to serve that character and it was great so I wondered about your stage career what has been both your most fond memory but also the thing that you're most proud of well I think they go hand-in-hand really earlier I was talking to some people and and Medea started very small with Jonathan Kent directing at the Almeida and it was sellout but no Western producer picked up on it and I forget what we did we oh I know we did all for love afterwards but all the time Jonathan and I were saying I could I could tell there was more life in this play it wasn't dead it had further to go so after awful love ended we went to see Bill Kenwright and I said to bill please resurrect it trust me it'll work and bill he pretended he'd seen it he hadn't but he said yes oh yes I'll do it wonderful wonderful he said so blessing he did we toured all around England and each place we toured out there was a absolutely very little advance publicity very little word-of-mouth but we played a week in each place and gradually gradually we built we built we built and by the end we were playing to a full house in each place we went to and then we went to London to Windom theater where we were sell out and then a when a Broadway producer picked up on it and we went to Broadway and we became sellout in Broadway which was for 2,000 year old play absolutely fantastic and I begged the producers to put Euripides name up in lights 2,000 years afterwards wonderful let's put him up there and they said no no no it'll put the people off and I said well he'll pay for it no and he if they refused to do it but there we were on Broadway a sellout and it was the same company all the time all all all the way through we'd stayed together and that to me is the perfect experience to have with a play that you start so modestly and and without any any true thought that it would ever ever take the journey that it did but it did and it was a miracle and I look back on it with such pleasure just yes so you talked about touring where is the most interesting place you ever talk to you we toured the Royal Shakespeare Company toured behind the Iron Curtain in the early 60s and I think the most interesting place was Rush we played Moscow and Leningrad Moscow was was actually Leningrad we we played the lens Soviet Palace of Culture which was two thousand people I Swank now that I played two thousand people it was a nightmare there were little ladies in booths in the front doing simultaneous translation and you can imagine simultaneous translation spreading over two thousand people and the playback was listening to budgerigar literally when we played in Moscow it was fascinating because we've been we were the first Western company been there quite a long time the students hid themselves all over the theatre to just to hear it they were up at the gum trees they couldn't see it just to hear it they hidden they hid in dressing rooms anything anything to they were so hungry and I remember meeting Madame frets over who is the Minister of Culture and she was extraordinary she was so sort of say Muriel she said yes my peoples are now ready to read and she was deciding what they could couldn't read and he went to a an art a new end to a gallery which was you know the paintings were chosen by the same Central Committee and under each painting that had been accepted were eight copies and you thought where's creativity you know gone Khrushchev I met Chris Jeff this very imposing gentleman what we all did because he came backstage and he came backstage after seeing comedy of errors I think he must have been very confused by it he didn't have much of a sense of humor anyway but Elizabeth sprigs wonderful actress was playing the courtesan and she had a costume on that was very revealing she had very generous breasts and and Chris Jeff was absolutely fascinated by these breasts and there was a bowl of sweeties on the table and the Russian sweeties are big you know quality Street but they're big quality Street sweeties and Elizabeth's bricks he kept on putting these sweeties down and when you saw him you know years later making state visits and everything he's only I know I've seen you sticking sweet easterlies Briggs cleavage so I wondered before we open up the questions to the audience if we could jump to a slightly different matter so she said earlier in 2002 you took on the Daily Mail when they wrote a libelous article about you well they didn't write libel they just they just wrote rubbish and they just put words are we surprised and we just they just put words into my mouth and I thought I thought I felt I had to and I was advised not to and everybody said oh it's you know that cliche it's tomorrow's fish-and-chip wrapping well it isn't it just isn't gives us because they said I'd they I had a house in I have a house in France somehow they found out where I was they sent a photographer out there they photographed me with a huge baguette saying shopping for one they then said I was in retreat I had retired and was living as a recluse in France now this is pretty damaging and it's also pretty undermining it's almost like you know you are going to retire they are dictating your life so I had to fight back and it was a torturous process I wouldn't advise it to anyone because they fight dirty of course they do I was absolutely fascinated by the ladies they they had on retainer it was they were women and there they were with their power suits and beautifully groomed they were all on retainers and there they were lying manipulating the law in order to prove a point which was a lie so I had to fight it and I did and and we won thank goodness and the editor of The Daily Telegraph said would I like to write an article about it so I did and the response I got from the general public from people who'd been in a similar case I remember father whose daughter had her reputation been trashed by the Daily Mail and she'd had no redress at all I am auntie the press of this kind that did that like to throw my mud at helpless people I just I disagree and I will fight if ever it happens again and then post the Leveson inquiry do you think things have gotten better in this regard well I think I think they know that that there there is a point at which the law will step in that much they have to they have recognized whereas before there was I mean this was patently I mean in my respect it was a complete lie and they actually retired me and this was a this was 30 years ago to be retired and interestingly enough four months later people said oh I thought you'd gone to live in France I mean the power of this these newspapers huge never never Adam underestimated them it's a poignant point to open to the floor I'm so if you'd like to put up your hand if you got a question and wait for the microphone to breed to you and so is there a first question yeah it intamin over there thank you first of all thank you for a wonderful talk I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was it was very fascinating and but my m-my my Nan's about your age and she always enjoyed watching you and she was younger she thought you were sort of class incarnate because she came to reversal of humble working-class background but she was very surprised when she saw you on them Doctor Who a few years ago with a very Yorkshire accent so have you ever wanted to have had a bit more chance to be a bit a bit less you know sort of madera and Shakespeare and a bit more Yorkshire when you've been acting yeah well I I am from Yorkshire and and very proud of it too I may say although I was brought up in India I either mind my dad went out there and built Grell ways and I was brought up there and yeah I'd love it I'd love I mean everybody thinks because I would speak the way I speak but I can do bloody good to Yorkshire accent sure so I hope I'd do a part yeah with a northern accent with with a huge pleasure let's take another question yeah let's jump over to the gentleman on the front row thank you um what do you think about more or less recent developments in directing and staging moving away further from what conservative people might call the intention of the author if that exists a place or oh well I don't quite understand it because we are there to serve the text I mean this is fundamental to our profession and when you deviate from the text you aren't doing your job I had a very interesting encounter with Arthur Miller years ago who in Boston and he was he was going to get getting a prize and I was there and we got there too early and I suggested that we went of course and had a drink which we did and I'd seize the opportunity and there's a wonderful opportunity to be able to speak to this God and I said you know please of all the plays that you've seen that you wrote from the beginning when you see them again years later what are the most crucial differences have you noticed and there was a pause and he looked at me and said ruefully personality and that says it all doesn't it that people choose to bring their personality to a part instead of serving that part do you think there's any value in that if a famous actor actress brings their own personality that can get especially young people a lot more than through the door to see the play even if it relinquishes some of their well I'd I'm not suggesting that because they're famous they necessarily you know manipulate or distort the part that they're playing I think quite the opposite for the most part they they tend to serve the part but they are obvious the mesmeric performers and yup so so they become very watchable but I'm they don't all distort I think it's the distortion that authors resent and I if I were an author I'd resent it oh that's not the way I saw it why bring what you think is important to it instead of what I think is important let's take another question yep - the hand just behind thank you so much and you're a real inspiration first of all and I wondered when you were doing the Avengers and James Bond did you do any of the stunts yourself or did you have a stand-in I had I had a charming girl who would stand in for me from time to time but I used to you know I was quite quite fit I used to do quite a lot quite a lot of the stuff myself in the Bond I didn't ski I couldn't ski so there was a gentleman who was dressed up as me skiing and and he was called Willy Bognor he came from the famous Alpine family and they all skied and he was a champion skier and everything and he said to me one day would you like to would you like to know how it feels to ski and I said yeah but how he said I'll give you a piggyback it was the sexiest thing you've ever done anyway and we piggyback piggyback down I mean just down and of course you know you have to move with him as one and and take his rhythm and all that and oh god it was absolutely wonderful it didn't didn't end in a carnal relationship but it was a was a closest thing let's take another question yet - the handle on the right lady Olenna is obviously a fan favorite in Game of Thrones yes um I was wondering could you tell us about how you in preparation for the part came to sort of understand the character well we've been talking about this and we be evil how much evil do I have in me and I honestly think well first of all playing a body is much more interesting than playing a goodie I mean they're boring but a body has an infinite capacity for evil and-and-and drama yeah so I didn't prepare it's all on the page you know you learn it and you know within the human condition which we all have within us all of the the recipe and there is a there is a degree of evil I I recognize it I mean I I I couldn't kill but I recognized the motive behind killing jealousy have you all experienced jealousy yes you're all being shy aren't you you're being shy and saintly well I don't agree you a lot of you have the experience jealousy and jealousy is the springboard to all sorts of evil isn't it really and so if you if you if you felt that little wiggly germ of evil then you can expand on it in any direction you want that's why I find playing bad is so so absolutely wonderful and then I come out of it and I'm a saint let's take another question yeah jump over to the hand over there if you just wait for the microphone just one second just thank you lady Olenna again a fan of Game of Thrones I just wanted to know that you also read that novice before acting in Game of Thrones or you just stick to scripts and oh no no you stick to the script the question was did we improvise no no I wanted to ask you did you also read the novice before you acted in Game of Thrones sorry yeah to the hand yeah sir well first of all I have to say that having taken out Joffrey I don't consider you a baddie but keeping on the Game of Thrones theme what was your favorite scene to act and who was your favorite co-star well I think the last scene was just the best scene to play I mean God what a gift I think Charles dance because I worked with him a long time ago we did a nipson together a long time ago and it's it's lovely when you reconnect with actors and he's some he's wonderfully old actor laddie isn't he and so it's great playing it was great playing with him and I'm very fond of him he's been carnal he's been with your favorite co-star to work with across your career uh I've worked a lot with Alec McCann whom you wouldn't remember I worked a lot along with said the man with the end Richardson yeah Simon Russell Beale I did a play with you just you get very close to people you it's wonderfully bonding there are some directors who sort of I don't know quite where it comes from who decide that it's time to play trust games and I'm afraid I I kind of I think I sort of check out of that because the greatest trust you can ever show is to step onstage with somebody and you so need each other and you so rely on each other and you so stimulate each other and you so challenge each other that it's all there to experience wonderful let's take another question yeah to the hand yeah you sir thank you a couple weeks back I listened to a talk by Mark Williams the actor who played Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter series and he talked about how very much when you come to acting you have to bring your own personality quite a lot to the role that you're playing or else you just kind of fade into the distance and you don't make yourself distinguishable which I found quite interesting and what you were saying about how you have to kind of be fundamentally loyal to the text so do you think in terms of an actor making themselves successful and perhaps even bringing their own spin on a text do they have to be fundamentally a slave to the text or are they do you think it's encouraging that they can take their own interpretations upon it and make a text like media applicable to the modern age I think you phrase it wrongly because you say slave to the text I would say serve the text and the point at which you you learn how far you have to travel is knowing yourself and and understanding the character that you're playing and knowing how far you have to travel to subsume yourself into that part I hope I've made that clear that you aren't a slave but you serve it in other words it is greater than you it has to be because it's been conceived by somebody else and a great deal of thought and care and work has gone into it and you have I think to recognize that and serving in other words I put writing i am i worshiped good writing where would we be without good writing in our theatre I mean we wouldn't exist we wouldn't have careers we wouldn't we'd have no means of earning a living without good writing I mean I've worked with bad writing and you do what you can to turn it into good writing and it doesn't always work in fact seldom works but really good writing it's such a gift why distort it to serve your own purposes I don't understand that so where do you allow your own personality to flow into the taste where how do you allow that to create those sorts of ways yeah I mean it's you apart from anything else it's your voice it's your brain it's your your body interpreting it's your wit there's there's a lot but it needn't be to the detriment of the text this is a detriment of the character you're playing I've seen some performances and believe you me they are riveting you know these these stars who are doing their thing they're absolutely brilliant and riveting some of them not all the best and you sit there and think you are brilliant you just brilliant but you're not serving your tape sorry darling No let's take another question yeah - the hand in the back hi thank you um so there's the classic cult horror film theater of blood and I'm just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your journey with that film and what that film means to you because it's fantastic well it guy loved it I am I don't know if you've seen it I you know I very seldom recommend but it's such a hoot and it's a right old theater of blood is what it's called another lot of blood and I played with Vincent Price who was God such a delight he was heavenly and he's he had - he was a Shakespearean actor and he had to say you know quite a lot of Shakespeare and he was very good at it I mean here he was master of the macabre and the even of the horror movie and he's just a waste in a sense because he was a very very good Shakespearean player he told me and we had plenty of time together you know laughing me he had a wonderful sense of humor and he told me about Boris Karloff and now who's the other horror movie star does anybody remember it was Boris Karloff and can you remember no no not Vincent it was there are two of them and they were no American not lon chaney another one anyway trust me there were these two together and Boris Boris Karloff let's call him mr. X Boris Karloff and mr. X were neck and neck has to be king of the horror movies and mr. X died before Boris Karloff Boris Karloff had a little Lisp and Vincent Price turned up to the funeral with Boris Karloff to mr. X's lion and as they approached the coffin Vincent Price told me this Boris Karloff leant over the coffin and said you're not putting me on are you sweetie which I think absolutely is wonderful and the other thing is the Vincent Price Carl Brown was was was in the film as well a lot of stars were in the film and coral Brown and Vincent were doing a sort of little Pavan run each other and I knew they I knew that something was going on they were both well into their 70s and um Vincent asked me to to go to a charged performance with him one Sunday so we went in the car and Carl was there and we went to the loo together in the interval and and and : I Carl was in the next cube or guy had this wonderful voice of her saying it's a long time since I fancied anybody of my own I aged but I fancy Vincent Price so I thought uh-huh and on the way home Vincent said it's Carl's birthday next week I don't know what to get her for a present now Vincent was really mean so I said Vincent you have it on your person and it won't cost you a penny did you get it let's take another question yeah back the hunter this is just very quick was the person you're thinking of Bailey Lugosi sorry Bella Lugosi exactly right Bela Lugosi gray thank God for Google hey let's take another question yeah yeah hello and I think I am one of the lucky ones I was in London I came to see you in media you were Magnus magnificent I mean your voice the way you walked on the stage I was mesmerized it was just like it's my first days in London and it was the first play I never forgot and is I think it's something going to stay rest of my life and that night and watching you and up until now I thought it that was your real voice and it was really powerful the way you walk on the stage with that voice how do you cut off you're coming from a character is it difficult to be Diana Rigg again after planes such a strong performance your dear question but the point is no I have no difficulty at all I don't carry anything home with me ever there is simply no point there's some actors do find that's the way they choose to live for me I put everything into that time when I am at the theater and I love the preparation you never you're there before the curtain goes up you're there good well I'm generally there an hour beforehand it's not that I'm getting into character so much as the the preparation of being by yourself and putting the makeup on putting the costume on and then the while of the walk to the stage and I love that stepping on stage and that moment when you encounter the audience and you think you're into that scene but at the same time there's a there's a consciousness about what kind of an audience is it tonight what are they like tonight and you know in a very instinctive way you sort of putting out feelers see if they're quite what they're like are they with you or you ain't have to win them over are they sitting back folding their arms saying show me or are they longing for you to succeed and that is what I love about it and it might sound pompous and I do hope it doesn't but it is a communion the audience when you think about it they come to believe so it is a communion and it is our responsibility to meet that belief with all the powers an art of our profession let's take another question yeah the handset heaven oh yeah so as someone who's obviously played in a lot of Shakespeare plays how do you feel about places like the globe doing gender bends of characters and potentially doing more modernized aging because I know there was a bit of a bust up a couple of years ago with the Globes they're actually about some of it I'm so sorry I can't I didn't hear the end of your question I think there was a bit of a bust that with the Globes are actually a couple of years ago about some of it so I was wondering what your opinion was it's about gender been during like changing the gender of characters I think yes or obstruction of the fellow where they had cassio they played by FEMA well I haven't seen it so I I really can't comment and I can only comment at the idea and I mean we're we're at a stage now where all sorts of lines are being blurred and if that's what the the current audience wants then I say go there I mean why not it either succeeds or it doesn't and if it doesn't then we'll move on to another form of experiment does that make sense to you I I wouldn't I wouldn't shut the door on anything that might I don't know bring in a new audience it's all about Parmesan seats isn't it yeah let's time to the hand in the back room you paint a picture of this rather drab existence when you were you know growing up about did I do that when you talked about the only thing we had was Chubby Checker and I'm putting to you that of course we had Elvis and then in the sixties in the early sixties when young men like me thought you were the most wonderful thing since sliced bread is getting better boys was the period of the sixties you know sex drugs and rock and roll and you were out there didn't you have a fabulous time in the sixties you want me to talk about my sex life not necessarily I'm not going to but in Yorkshire we didn't have Elvis Presley we only had Chubby Checker for us obviously things changed radically in the 60s and thank goodness for it because when I was growing up the the there was a pall of silence over so much I mean homosexuality racism sex indeed between even heterosexual sex nobody I would certainly but where I came from in Yorkshire nobody spoke about it at all and you know thank god we've traveled as far as we have now next question and I think we got time for one or two more questions anymore Dame Donna you will span the generations burst into my life in Austria when I was a teenager and you gave me a message and my pale that I could do things that my parents told me I couldn't do I'm thrilled to see the audience that's here today is bonding with you in the same way and in between we have the amazing real acting that I've seen you do could you please tell me how you've achieved place from Emma Peel which was a little bit saccharine and everything to today to the games of Thrones can you explain to me what do you have personally how do you have to achieve this to keep your audience from my eight to this age I've just been lucky I have to say because they the parts came and I did have I had oh god yes I've been out of work and and and it was it was pretty grim I um I compiled a book I don't know I you know I'm not it you can't buy it so I'm not selling it and it's called no turn on stoned and it's about the history of the theatre and about all the bad notices that everybody got and I will tell you mine in the end believe you me I won't duck that I sound like Trump don't I when I say believe you mean does that ring a bell shoot anyway yeah so I made a lecture out of that and I toured the universities in in America and that got me through a really bad period I think I think first of all you have to be you have to be lucky and you I mean I was offered Game of Thrones what a gift that was at my age before that I've done Doctor Who I done you know the the theaters that I've done television into infinity some good some bad but at each point you learn and I think the fact that I refused to keep just marching on the spot has kept my career going and I would advise anybody to know of coming up to constantly constantly challenge yourself I mean I think it's the same in any profession you you can't just not want to know I mean for example I have a life a wonderful life outside the theater I read prodigiously yeah I'm for 10 years I was Chancellor of sterling university I was Chancellor of the University I've been on countless boards I've traveled the wide world and not necessarily four-star I I've been to countries like the Galapagos and Bhutan because it's there and I long to see and and learn and absorb I was not long ago in Burma that is what I am I'm not just an actress I am a person of very diverse tastes and and and needs and I need to be the person I am to be the person I am I need to feed it does that make sense without being hopelessly egg eccentric which I'm not I hope you realize well maybe a little and then let's jump to one more question hello I'm a big performance are a big fan of your performance as mrs danvers' in rebecca who is one the most iconic antagonists in literary history i wanted to know were you a fan of Daphne du Maurier's novel beforehand and did you enjoy the experience of playing such an incredible character yes I loved the question was about mrs danvers in in Rebecca I love doing it Judith Anderson a very great American actress had done it before me and I think one Oh loads of rewards for it so it was a bit of a challenge because you know that a predecessor and so very much made it her own the thing that that I think when I was at school I I we had a passion it was called a pash passion on older older girls at school not necessarily carnal Amy must you but you just you had a and and I I remembered that and I thought that something about mrs danvers' loving rebecca as she does and being obsessed by rebecca as she does and there's something of the schoolgirl passion for Rebecca so I had a wig and and it was pulled across and I had a Kirby grip in it to sort of just be that schoolgirl person wear something again talking about playing people evil people bad people again and never forget that sometimes the the impulse has has gone bad but the the initial impulse was love she loved this woman which she dis laughs turned to obsession and and and the obsession turned into evil and it's it was it developed and I again thoroughly enjoyed because it's AB it's a wonderful adaptation and and again it's it's a wonderful book yeah loved it thank you so much so I think we've got something to yeah i i i discovered this poem which i think is divine and i don't think i made you laugh enough tonight it's an epitaph for an elderly actress by no coward she got in a rage about age and retired in a huff from the stage which taken all around was a pity because she was still fairly pretty but she got in a rage about age she burst into tears it appears when the rude inconsiderate years undermined her once flawless complexion and whenever she saw her reflection in a mirror she burst into tears it appears she got in a state about wait and resented each morsel she ate her colon she constantly sluiced and reduced and reduced and reduced and had quite an incredible rate put on weight she got in a rage about age but she still could have played mistress page and she certainly could have done worse than a fever or Juliet's nurse but she got in a terrible rage about age and she moaned and she wept and she wailed and she roared as she rounded and railed and retired very heavily veiled from the stage you

Channel: OxfordUnion

Views: 54,198

Rating: 4.9359999 out of 5

Keywords: Oxford, Union, Oxford Union, Oxford Union Society, The Oxford Union, Oxford University, dame diana rigg, diana rigg, dame, game of thrones, lady olenna, west end, broadway, emmy nominated, actress, the avengers, english actress, theatre

Id: L5-Aor8qUXE

Length: 62min 35sec (3755 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 08 2019