Harriet Walter Quotes
I decided I was going to play Cleopatra as someone with a brain. She's kept Egypt, this tiny country, in a balance of power with the almighty Roman empire, and she's done it through force of personality.
Walter, Harriet. Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women. Nick Hern Books, 2016, p. 86.
For a number of years Eisenhower worked for MacArthur as a key aide.
Cleopatra was not just a woman ruling between male dynasties, but a brilliant and able politician, tactician, and military leader. She was descended from Alexander the Great’s Macedonian General Ptolomy who inherited Egypt upon Alexander’s death. By all accounts she was an amazing leader irrespective of gender. But she also used her sexuality very powerfully. Her language skill was remarkable; she was actually the first of the line of Ptolemy rulers of Egypt who actually spoke and read Egyptian. Of course she was also fluent in Greek and Latin as well as all the “Barbarian” languages.
In his relationship with FDR General Marshall was the Senior Army Officer and Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII. What was amazing about Marshall was how he argued forcefully from his narrower perspective as the leader of the army, but did not resent it when President Roosevelt decided differently citing wider, non-military consideration. Roosevelt had the almost unique ability to make decisions from the big picture perspective and have most of his subordinates with narrower responsibility and perspective accept understandingly.
Dame Harriet Mary Walter DBE is an English stage and screen actress. Her film appearances include Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Governess (1998), Villa des Roses (2002), Atonement (2007) and Man Up (2015). On television she starred as Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK (2009–14), as Lady Prudence Shackleton in four episodes of Downton Abbey (2013–15), and as Clementine Churchill in The Crown (2016). She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2011 for services to drama.
