Kristin Scott Thomas

I wouldn't be able to be an actress because I wasn't allowed to.

It was kind of confirmation of my worst fears.

Was it quite mixed?

then drama school or was it mostly middle class girls i mean you've been oh no i got oh my god no i got such grief for that i can't even begin to tell you such grief for that it was like of course you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth etc which of course was not the case the fact that i spoke like someone from the 1950s was what put them onto that yeah

But anyway, those days have gone.

And when I found this wonderful family in France, she had been a concert pianist and had a car accident and ruined her hand.

So she'd converted into helping TV shows, because there was an awful lot of cultural television in those days back in France.

And she was a sort of link between...

the camera and the orchestra, so she'd know when you'd have to zoom into the violin.

So she managed to recreate something musical with what she was able to do now.

And she had lots of friends who were singers and musicians and actors and directors and really encouraged me.

And in fact...

when I was about to chicken out of going to my audition for drama school in France, she came to the kitchen.

She said, what are you doing here?

I said, well, I'm just washing up.

And she goes, well, I thought you had your audition this afternoon.

And I said, yeah, but I'm not going to go because there's no point in like this.

And she said absolute nonsense and grabbed me by the wrist.

I still remember her little hand, her claw around my wrist and dragged me downstairs, hailed a cab, gave the man 50 francs and said, take her to the,

the theater and i got in so i have everything to thank her for was it more freeing acting in french like yes being in your english is your mother tongue yeah my english is my mother tongue uh it was and at the same time it was terrifying the first year i didn't really say very much i did a lot of mime