Miriam Margolyes

Miriam Margolyes OBE (/ˈmɑːrɡəliːz/ MAR-gə-leez; born 18 May 1941) is a British-Australian actress. Known for her work as a character actor across film, television, and stage, she received the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs. Mingott in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993), and achieved international prominence with her portrayal of Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film series (2002–2011).

Miriam Margolyes in 2008

Quotes

• I was in my late twenties when I told my mother. [...] I spoke to her about an affair with a woman and three days later she had this stroke.
• I now regret it because it caused the person I loved the most pain she could not bear. I should have been aware that to tell her was very wrong. It also hurts me that she was not then able to live to see my success.
  • Interviewed on Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4), as cited in "Margolyes's gay confession led to mother's stroke", The Sunday Times (28 September 2008)
  • In a 2020 interview, Margolyes says her mother suffered a stroke a few months after the conversation.

• [On mortality] If you are a Jew, and I am, it is not a subject that is ever far away. The Holocaust, in which I lost no one I knew, scarred me forever. And my life is informed by knowledge of it. I'm a jolly little soul but at the back of the jollity there is a knowledge of despair.
  • From an interview, as cited in "Miriam Margolyes: 'I'm still a naughty schoolgirl at heart'", The Telegraph (11 October 2009)

• The umbilical cord was never completely cut, metaphorically speaking, so I still feel massively connected to them long after their deaths.
  But I also happen to think that being an only child is inevitably damaging in some way because it too intensely focuses you on your parents and deprives young people of the socialising they must experience in order to fruit properly. I was terribly anxious to make friends; and I'm still needing people rather more than I should be, even at this advanced age.
  • Interviewed by Maureen Paton, as cited in "Miriam Margolyes: I had no secrets from my mother", The Guardian (2 June 2012)

• [On the TV series Miriam's Big Fat Adventure] I've always been fat and you're not supposed to be fat, so my built-in rebellion starts with the very flesh that I inhabit.
• For 11 years they must have had intercourse but never complete[ly], but in the air raid, in the heat of the terror, I was created.
  • Interviewed by Tanya Gold, as cited in "'I feel compelled to be disgraceful': Miriam Margolyes interviewed", The Spectator (7 March 2020)