A biography for Janet McTeerhasn’t been written yet.
“There are some roles that are a no-brainer. You just have a sure, instinctive 'Yes!'”
“When children arrive, or when some crisis occurs, couples don't have the resources to deal with it because they've been so busy getting on with their lives. They haven't learned how to sit down and discuss things.”
“I was always a character actress.”
“People are calling a lot, sending scripts my way. Yes, it's wonderful because, let's face it, there aren't many wonderful scripts for women over the age of 10.”
“I have very girly hands and I use them a lot when I talk in a way that I think is very feminine.”
“I just want people to focus on the performance.”
“I have become a marketing tool and I feel very uncomfortable with that. There's no space for me to express myself.”
“I have always been drawn to strong and interesting women, people who have navigated that world before you and maintained their integrity and sense of self.”
“My mother and father are still together after forty something years. I lived in one place till I was 6. I lived in another place from when I was 6 till I was 17.”
“I was very nervous about the accent. I was very nervous about being an American.”
“When you're an actor, you get your ideas from everywhere - even from someone on the street. We're total thieves!”
“When you create a character, you create it for yourself - you do whatever you want. It's your job to explore it in as many different avenues as you can in order to make it a fully wounded character.”
“All theater is unpredictable. That's the definition of theater.”
“I love the way we do theatre in London: I love the fact that everybody is trained.”
“I suppose that there might have been leading men who were put off from casting me as the ingenue because I was taller than they were, but I've no idea that this ever happened. When I did 'Much Ado About Nothing' opposite Mark Rylance in the West End, we used the difference in our heights as part of their relationship.”
“It's hard to learn an American accent. Some of the Rs at the ends of words are incredibly hard.”
“I feel strongly for the younger actresses when a lot of their career is based on how they look. That must be hard when your looks begin to go and you haven't built up the wealth of character parts to get into something else.”
“New Yorkers are either the nicest or the rudest.”
“The older you get, the better you get, because you've seen more. You don't necessarily have to go through a lot, but you have to witness it in order to recreate it.”
“In my heart of hearts, I love theatre. It's the joy and terror of putting a play on, the creativity of it. It is infinitely harder than film and television and more tiring. Your performance is heightened in the way it isn't with film.”