Tracey Ullman

As I get older, I just prefer to knit.

— Tracey Ullman

I'm still that little girl who lisped and sat in the back of the car and threw vegetables at the back of her head when we drove home from the market. That never goes.

— Tracey Ullman

Go home!

— Tracey Ullman

I never worked with a dialogue coach before, but I'd hate it if an American did a British accent and didn't do it well. It would be insulting.

— Tracey Ullman

I love having a kid [...] They don’t let you think about yourself. [The one drawback of being a mum in America is that] Mabel wants Barbie, one of those bloody awful dolls. No vaginas, no nipples and they're bulimic. This is what femininity is? [...] Ever tried to assemble a Barbie barbecue stand? [...] Fortunately, Mabel already knows that Ken's just Mr. Barbie. She already cut his hair punk style. She knows that ... Ken's an idiot.

— Tracey Ullman

I wouldn't do anything mean spirited. If it's in the wrong spirit, or if its not honest, then I wouldn't do it. It's got to honest. Otherwise, what's the point?

— Tracey Ullman

Every seven years or so I look around me and I want to look at the society and I want to try and be everyone I'm seeing in the world right now. [...] And I've done this all my life. I realized I used to do this in my mother's bedroom when I was 6. I used to be everyone in my village and everyone at school and everyone in the news, and I'm still doing that same show. I'm now 56. I think I can do it in my 80s. I'll just, you know, impersonate everyone around me then in the nursing home.

— Tracey Ullman

I based my career from the very beginning on people like Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Margaret Rutherford. I keep thinking Maggie and Judi are going to eventually not want those parts and I’m going to move up and take them (laughter). So, hopefully, I’ll be working in my 70s and 80s. You know, character actresses. I never had looks to lose. I could keep going—Meryl Streep and me.

— Tracey Ullman

The BBC said the only thing they didn’t like about the show was those weird little animated characters and suggested maybe they could get rid of them because they would never catch on.

— Tracey Ullman

Dignity, girls! Ageing with dignity – that's the thing.

— Tracey Ullman

American [comedy] was always stronger because you had Lucille Ball, you had Carol Burnett, you had Lily Tomlin, Gilda Radner. I came from a country where we just had Benny Hill girls. You had to run around in a bikini basically in the '80s in Britain. Then I did a sketch show and Pamela Stevenson and then (Dawn) French and (Jennifer) Saunders just shook it all up. But I grew up thinking I could be a character actress. I didn't think I could go into comedy.

— Tracey Ullman

My face is a good one for doing impersonations. I’ve got small eyes, a low brow and a big head ... When I worked at the BBC in the 80s the only wigs that would fit me were Mike Yardwood's.

— Tracey Ullman

I love John Waters. There's stuff in it that's beyond the boundaries of my taste, but his movies have always been like that.

— Tracey Ullman

From an early age. I used to dress up and impersonate our next-door neighbor, Miss Cox. She wore rubber boots, a wool hat, and her nose always dripped. My father died when I was 6 and we were really sad, so I put on a show for my mum. [In a mocking American accent] Looking back now, it was a kind of therapy.

— Tracey Ullman

I left school at 16 and went to Berlin and danced [...] West Berlin, 1976. It was amazing. I wish they hadn't taken the wall down. Now it's full of east Germans wearing Versace shirts.

— Tracey Ullman

People think I'm a demented little pixie, but I'm not 'on' all the time. I'm sensible. I pay my bills. I've never done drugs. I don't drink or smoke. I eat organic. I'm a goody-goody, really, but I can play bad girls.

— Tracey Ullman

I'm as famous as I want to be.

— Tracey Ullman

I thought I'd end up in a Swiss sanitarium. It was brutally hard work. I could barely see my family.

— Tracey Ullman

It's very therapeutic, what I do. Other people get this anonymity and thrill from being in an Internet chat room, where they can be anybody they want to be. That's the feeling I get, but to an even greater extent. I physically take on these characteristics. Afterwards, I feel I'm a parrot. I need a black bag put over my head until I become myself again.

— Tracey Ullman

Working with the same people week after week brings out inspiration. You have to have an open discussion or you end up with actors saying fuck you to the writers and writers saying fuck you to the actors.

— Tracey Ullman

Every character I do is based on someone I know. I try to justify every sketch we do. If it's not working, we find someone to talk to who it has happened to.

— Tracey Ullman

What I fear most is that you will know where the laughs are going to come, or that you will know a character so well that you know when they're going to sing a song. In some shows, you just know that the audience is sitting there going "Oh no, she's going to sing."

— Tracey Ullman

They hold onto a small child who's hungry, then go back to their homes and feel good about themselves. That's how I perceive actors getting involved in politics and charities. They want even more attention for themselves, it's in their nature.

— Tracey Ullman

Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?

— Tracey Ullman

I was never a child. I was always a menopausal woman within a child's body.

— Tracey Ullman

You see, most people with multiple personalities get therapy. I get my own HBO comedy series!

— Tracey Ullman

Hollywood to me, I never get the real glamour and romance. I look at an old picture of Veronica Lake, you know, looking glamorous, and I just look at her and think, "Maybe she had her period that day."

— Tracey Ullman

Oh, yeah, she's that snippy little Brit girl who takes all the parts so no one else gets a crack at it.

— Tracey Ullman

I'd stand in front of the mirror and talk to myself until I fell asleep, you know. I'd interview myself as women with problems, you know, like, women in documentaries who had three kids and chainsmoked and husbands in prison that hit them! I'd be in the mirror going, [lowers voice] yeah well, you know, it's not easy since Derrin went into prison. My eyes aren't black anymore, but the twins, Tilly and Wayne, you know, they don't stop crying. SHUT UP TILLY SHUT UP TILLY!

— Tracey Ullman

My mum went and married a really horrible horrible man, who drove a taxi at night and had a sticky-fingered son and he smoked cigars in the toilet. Smelled terrible! Again, there's no therapy, there's no counseling over the whole situation! Just married the maniac. And there was a new person in her bed now, and I couldn't do my nightly performance anymore. I was nine years old and my show had been canceled!

— Tracey Ullman

I thought, is this what it's all about? Do you have to be blonde and girly and have freckles and a snub-nose and sort of act the coquette in show business? WELL YES!

— Tracey Ullman

Everybody's [in Berlin] gay!

— Tracey Ullman

As we twirled and snapped our fingers, I felt light and airy and fancy-free. Of course I did, I had no bloody panties on! And the cartwheel lift's coming up! And I'm a brunette!

— Tracey Ullman

As I get older, I just prefer to knit.

— Tracey Ullman

I think serial monogamy says it all.

— Tracey Ullman

Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?

— Tracey Ullman

Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?

— Tracey Ullman

I'm still that little girl who lisped and sat in the back of the car and threw vegetables at the back of her head when we drove home from the market. That never goes.

— Tracey Ullman

I'm as famous as I want to be.

— Tracey Ullman

Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?

— Tracey Ullman

Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?

— Tracey Ullman

I think serial monogamy says it all.

— Tracey Ullman