Why Britannia still rules the stage - part 4
The veterans
Masters of the art
35 Penelope Wilton
Age: 61
Training: Drama Centre
Coming up: ITV film, Half Broken Things, to be aired in October.
Heroes: 'Several older actresses were very kind to me as a young actress. Irene Worth was encouraging, and generous when we were doing The Seagull at Chichester.
Career highs: 'When I was 30, Harold Pinter directed me in Betrayal. I've worked with David Hare and Pinter many times over my career.'
Career low: 'Being out of work. I think it's more difficult for women. You get to a certain age and you experience this drop off and later reappearance.'
Are you proud to be British? 'I see myself as being more European. I do lots of plays by Ibsen and Chekhov, and I'm directed by a lot of people who aren't British.'
Why is British acting so good? 'Our play repertoire is very good and we are language-orientated. The plays do come first, and that's the way it should be.'
36 Zoe Wanamaker
Age: 58
Training: Central School of Speech and Drama
First part: Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream in Manchester with the 69 Theatre Company.
Coming up: Mrs Jarley in The Old Curiosity Shop (ITV), Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the National in December
Would love to work with: Robert de Niro
Career high: 'Mother Courage was a high: no lines to learn and I died at the end.'
Career low: 'I had a crisis of confidence two years ago. I got stage fright, quite badly. I had to fight it.'
Favourite theatre: 'I love working in the Donmar.'
Is being British important to you? 'I feel more European really, though I do feel very protective of this country.'
Why is British acting talent so good? 'I cannot say British acting is the best in the world, but I can say it is pretty damn good.'
37 Clare Higgins
Age: 51
Training: Lamda
Coming up: Chris Weitz's film of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass
First job: Royal Exchange, Manchester. 'It was a play called The Deep Man. I played a shallow woman.'
Big break: 'Richard Eyre has consistently asked me to play wonderful parts at the National. I owe him a huge debt.'
Career high: 'Being nominated for a Tony for Vincent in Brixton. And getting three.'
Hero: Aung San Suu Kyi.
Would like to work with: Dame Judi Dench. 'I blame her for getting me into this business. She is a total goddess.'
Favourite play: 'My favourite plays are by Tennessee Williams. I am working through them. I really want to do Orpheus Descending next year.'
Favourite venue: 'The Donmar, because you can reach out and touch the audience.'
Why do the British make good actors? 'I think you need to be slightly mad and have an awful lot of energy.'
38 Oliver Ford Davies
Age: 67
Training: Oxford University, where he was president of the Drama Society .
Coming up: Saint Joan at the National.
Heroes: 'Paul Scofield was the greatest. I worked with him in Heartbreak House.'
Career high: 'The David Hare trilogy in 1993 at the National.'
Career low: 'To earn some money for Christmas once in the late Seventies I went and got a job as a cleaner and I cleaned Cicely Courtneidge and Jack Hulbert's house. She was a famous comedy musical star. I remember cleaning Jack Hulbert's bath after he'd been in it. That was a low moment.'
Favourite play: 'Chekhov's Three Sisters, although I've never been in it.'
Favourite scene: 'I played King Lear five years ago. The recognition scene with Cordelia is my favourite.'
Why is British acting so good? 'The number of regional theatres means there is always a lot of theatre activity. Another reason is connected with why there have been a lot of very good British poets. I think that although the British are a fairly repressed, introverted race, there is an imagination bubbling away. When it's released into acting and writing, it's very powerful.'
39 David Haig
Age: 51
First job: Acting as an assistant stage manager for £27 a week at Westcliff-on-Sea.
First part: An offstage, one-liner role. He was required to say: 'I'll have a pint of bitter, please.' 'A test of nerve.'
Big break: Tom and Viv, directed by Max Stafford-Clark in 1985.
Career high: His own play about Kipling, My Boy Jack, which is now being filmed, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Jack; Haig plays Kipling.
Career low: A pub production in which the publican's six-year-old son came on stage in pyjamas and told the cast they were making too much noise.
Favourite play: Chekhov's The Three Sisters.
Would like to play: King Lear in seven or eight years' time. (Reluctant admission. He fears it may sound absurd.)
On British acting: 'There is nothing more powerful than an inherently restrained national trait when it lets go.'
40 Harriet Walter
Age: 56
Training: Lamda
Coming up: Film of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement. 'I play Emily Tallis, Keira Knightley's mother.'
First part: Ugly sister in Beauty and the Beast at Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster.
Big break: Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, directed by William Gaskill for Joint Stock, at Riverside. 'He took a chance on me.'
Career high: Playing Lily, 'a flirt', in Louis Malle's film Milou en Mai
Would love to work with: Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar
British theatre's value: 'You can build a consistency, take responsibility and your experience is welcome there.' Yet she wishes that Britain had 'more of a film tradition'.
Heroine: Glenda Jackson. 'She made me realise that unusual people can be actors.'
41 Lesley Manville
Age: 51
Training: Italia Conti Stage School
Coming up: Mrs Rose in The Cranford Chronicles, an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's novels.
First part: I and Albert, the musical, directed by John Schlesinger. She was 16.
Career high: The 'halycon days' in the Eighties at the Royal Court (her favourite theatre), where she worked with Max Stafford-Clark for 12 years.
Favourite play: Ibsen's Pillars of the Community.
Heroes: Max Stafford-Clark and Mike Leigh (she has starred in many of his films)
Would love to work with: The Coen brothers.
42 Ian McKellen
Age: 68
Training: Cambridge, read English
First job: In rep with the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
Big break: Edward II and Richard II for the Prospect theatre company, 1969.
Career high: Widow Twankey in Aladdin at the Old Vic.
Career low: 'Losing my voice during my solo show Acting Shakespeare at the Olivier, at a Terrence Higgins Trust fundraiser in 1984.'
Hero: Tyrone Guthrie: 'I was directed by him at a time when I needed the encouragement of a demanding director.'
Favourite theatre: Theatre Royal, Newcastle.
Worst thing written about him: The critic Harold Hobson averred: 'The best thing about Ian McKellen's Hamlet was his curtain call.'
Why is British acting so good? 'We get more practice.'
Are you proud to be British? 'I am grateful to speak the language of Shakespeare. Will that do?'
43 Roger Allam
Age: 52
Training: Read drama at Manchester.
Coming up: Speed Racer, a film by the Wachowski brothers.
First job: 'With a 1970s feminist socialist theatre company called Monstrous Regiment in a squat in Camden Square. I got a job because I could play several musical instruments.'
Career high: 'Doing well at the RSC in the 1980s. Sheila Hancock was doing a British tour and she cast me as Oberon/ Theseus in the Dream. We went to small towns all over Britain.
Favourite theatre: 'Small- to medium-sized Edwardian theatres are my favourites, like Stratford East, the Royal Court, Wyndhams, the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. And I love the Old Vic. I started going to the theatre on my own as a teenager when Olivier was still the artistic director there. '
Why is British theatre so good? 'Nick Hytner and others are reinventing British theatre, turning massive spaces like the Olivier into studios, so it is not all about expensive sets. There is so much innovation.'
44 Sara Kestelman
Age: 63
Training: Central School of Speech and Drama
Coming up: 'I am the deliverer of the asp to Cleopatra in the final episode of the second TV series of Rome.'
Hero: 'Russell Thorndike, Sybil Thorndike's brother, was 74 when I was 16, and he told me: "You should go to drama school".'
Career high: 'The RSC's seminal A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1971. I also had my own one-woman show with the subtle title All About Me. I got to play that in New York as part of the Cabaret Festival in 1999. It was incredible to be in New York on stage, reading my own material and singing my own songs. That was the biggest buzz ever.'
Career low: I once turned down the chance to go to Broadway because I didn't think I was good enough in the part I was playing. Well that was pretty stupid.'
45 Barbara Jefford
Age: 76
Training: Bristol University, Rada
Coming up: Pygmalion with the Peter Hall Company. Opens in Bath on 28 June then touring.
Heroes: 'I was very lucky to work straight after drama school with Peggy Ashcroft, and I'd always admired her.'
Career high: 'In my very first year at Stratford I played Isabella in Measure For Measure opposite John Gielgud. Then I played Saint Joan at the Old Vic. Making a film with Fellini, And the Ship Sails On, was pretty good, and working with Polanski on The Ninth Gate.'
Favourite play: 'Antony and Cleopatra. Playing Cleopatra opposite my husband, John Turner, three times was a high point. '
Do you define yourself as British? 'Absolutely, yes I do, not to say Cornish. I uphold Kernow.'
Why is British acting so good? 'We have such a heritage of acting and I believe we're the best in the world. We are lucky to have Shakespeare and Shaw. '
· Interviews by Killian Fox, Kate Kellaway, Stephanie Merritt, Liam O'driscoll and Katie Toms