Nicola Walker Quotes

I’d be an absolutely appalling detective… Appalling.

High-end divorce is a closed world. When I tried to research it, I was really surprised about how little there is out there. I think that’s because of the nature of the subject matter – privacy is incredibly important to this level of client.

I am very good at keeping secrets, except when I am drunk, when I will tell you absolutely anything.

I love being the first person to play a part. I really get a big thrill out of it.

We’re all used to seeing a lot of cop shows, some of them brilliant, some of them very generic.

If you could make telly as good as radio, it would be amazing – audio can do things so easily that television can’t.

I can’t tell you the excitement to be in a new TV series or a play you’ve got to read for. That’s the best.

Filming in London is brilliant.

It’s totally different playing a lawyer and a detective.

I just want to carry on doing high-quality work.

My make-up call as Cassie on ‘Unforgotten’ is 45 minutes, and on ‘The Split’, it’s considerably longer. They have to do your hair and your make-up. On ‘Unforgotten,’ I’m in and out, and I don’t have to worry about how I sit for the whole day so as not to crease the clothes.

I get quite fearful about interviews, so I sought advice from other actors.

We lived in so many flats, and the more people you could get, the cheaper the flat was. Someone was always sleeping in the living room, and you’re always slightly hiding them when the landlord came round.

When you’re working, you’re in the present, but you’ve always got one eye on where your next job might be coming from, and I don’t think that will ever go away.

It always makes me laugh to think that I get to sit around and chat with people like Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi and get paid for it.

My family moved out of London’s East End to a tiny village. The school I went to was supposed to be mixed gender, but there were hardly any boys born that year. So, yes, joining a youth theatre was a fun way to meet the opposite sex!

I don’t really have a treasured possession, but I do love my family’s proper old photo album. We all have hundreds of photos on our phones now, but you can’t beat the old albums stuffed with black-and-white wedding photographs and 1970s Polaroids.

I have to admit to the occasional need for ‘Come Dine with Me.’ I am the most atrocious cook, and that’s probably why I find it so entertaining. It looks exotic to me.

I’m a hoarder, but then, when it all gets too much, I turn into a ruthless chucker. I’m very good at clearing out and giving stuff away. But I’m equally skilled at shoving things in a cupboard, shutting the door, and calling that ‘cleared up.’

I took a long time after ‘Curious’ to find something I really wanted to do.

I come from a family of scrap metal dealers, so becoming an actor seemed like a ridiculous thing to do, but I’d found the thing that gave me a kick, and I quickly became obsessed with it.

My whole family were from the East End, but they moved away when I was a child. They still cannot get their heads around the fact that I ran back to London as soon as I could, when I was 21.

I find the whole ceremony of marriage a bit like going to work. Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair.

I’ve always had a resting expression that either makes me look deep in thought or as though I’m about to fight you. I’ve lost count of the number of directors asking me what the problem is when all I’m doing is sitting still and being.

The best thing my mum and dad did was to send me to the local youth theatre. I loved that; I felt I’d found the thing I really wanted to do.

I started when I was 21, and it was always about getting the next job – like most actors, that’s all it’s ever been for me.

When the acting all dries up, I won’t be going there – either to the police force or to the church. I’ll have to think of something else!

‘Collateral’ poses lots of questions and does it within the format of a really good, tense thriller. It starts at a real pace, and it doesn’t let go.

I’d do anything with Tom Courtenay.

I would like to think that there are more women in positions of power, to actually get these projects off the ground that are more balanced, where the story is about men and women.

I was always about working. I like working. I don’t like being unemployed. I love acting.

My two great fears are either not working or working on something that means you can’t do something else you really want.

Don’t worry about fitting in – it’s completely over-rated.

Cornwall is my favourite place – I wish I could earn a living there.

In this industry, people like to look at different faces on their screens – even I do.

I could never be anyone I’ve played. I am so not a detective; I can barely get 200 yards from A to B with the help of Google maps, and I am just about the least observant person on the planet, so I never notice what people look like or how they walk or if they’re committing a crime in broad daylight.

There wasn’t really anything I wanted to do other than acting, which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family, and we didn’t know anything about acting.

Once you’ve sat in a room annoying Derek Jacobi while he’s trying to do his crossword, you’re prepped for working with the greats.

‘The Split’ is actually really hopeful – although it’s left me reeling slightly, thinking about what we do to each other in the name of love, within the contract of marriage.

‘Spooks’ was very much of its time and rather unique, so I was more than happy to be in that as a long-runner – because I think we won’t have that sort of show again. I think it was really, really unusual.

I noticed that, on ‘Spooks,’ there were a lot of women behind the camera and in different departments.

There are a lot of women – directors, producers, writers – involved in my career. They are all interested in telling good stories, and good stories involve men and women.

My two girlfriends from university, Sue Perkins and Sarah Phelps, are both in the business – and are both stupidly busy. We talk on the phone a lot and try to get out to dinner together, but our preferred venue is one of our kitchens with a lot of tea.

It was really unusual that the crews on ‘Spooks’ were a real mix of men and women, and you’d struggle to see many women with parts that weren’t cliched back in the late ’90s.

We bought a sofa with the money I made from ‘Thunderbirds,’ and I’ve still got it, and we call it Thunderbird 1. That’s literally all I got out of the job.