Tamsin Greig Quotations

Tamsin Greig is a British actress, best known for appearing in Black Books and Green Wing.

On my mother's side I'm Polish-Jewish, and on my father's side I'm Scottish puffin.
- When asked about her heritage and striking nose

It suddenly hit me one day: after we're married I'll be called Mrs T Leaf!
- About her forthcoming marriage to Richard Leaf (1997)

In as much as any invisible, unbelievable, unknowable fictional character is, yes.
- When asked if Debbie Aldridge (her Archers character) is now part of her life.

Is that what he said? Is that what he said? He can talk! No, it’s true. I’m terrible. Do you know what? I’ve got quite an easy job. I’ve just got to look at people, say lines and not laugh. And two of those I do okay-ish. But basically I’m just shit at quite an ordinary job, namely not laughing. It’s not that hard not to laugh. The guy who sold me my travel card, he didn’t wet himself laughing. You just don’t do it.
- When told that Julian Rhind-Tutt claimed that she was quite bad about corpsing.

When I came to faith, I thought I would have to stop being an actor, because it’s all about artifice and manipulation. But we’re living in a world where God doesn’t really have an influence, unless it’s fundamentalists, so I’ll always be an outsider because of my faith. And when you think about it, faith and acting are all about stories, so the two are not mutually exclusive.
- About being a Christian

I said to one of them, "Look after the baby, I've got washing," because we've got washable nappies. I said, "Look after the baby. Entertain her, do some words," because she's saying words, "Do any words." So I came back after I scrapped all the stuff off, and he was going, "Say, ‘Wigan Athletic!’"
- About her children.

“Oh, nobody would ever want to know me in Hollywood. I’m far too puffin-faced for that, too weird-looking. No, I think I’ll probably stick to telly, if telly’ll have me, though I wouldn’t mind doing radio plays as well.”
- About if she would go to Hollywood.

“I did used to like trampolining, but I’m probably past it, I think. You need to have a really strong pelvic floor to be good at trampolining, and I’ve had three children.”
- About what she used to do in her spare time.

“Every drama school in the country turned me down, and so I was lucky to study drama at all, even if it was lowly Birmingham University. But even when I came out with my degree, my mother promptly insisted I go straight to secretarial college to have something to fall back on, just in case – which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.”
- About studying drama.

"It's interesting to see the dislocation between how people perceive a person visually. Apparently on the radio I'm blonde with a big arse."
- About what people thought her Archers character Debbie Aldridge looked like.

"There aren't many laughs in that and I remember doing a look and everybody laughed and I just thought, wow, that's incredible how you can do that. So I did another look and they laughed again and then I remember thinking, hold on, this isn't right for this piece, you've got to stop it."
- About getting her first laughs, during a production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

"Greig, currently hot in the TV comedy Green Wing, has a dark, brittle glamour that isn't quite beauty (there's a disconcerting touch of Edwina Currie about her) and suggests an incipient unhappiness lurking beneath the ready wit."
- About her performance as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, by Charlie Spencer in The Telegraph. After reading the part about Edwina Currie, she refused to read any more of the article.

See also