For women, there's a tyranny in trying to look young

Despite being occasionally tempted by the lure of nip and tuck, Brideshead Revisited legend Diana Quick has ruled out cosmetic surgery. Still striking at 77, she's earned her looks... and remains rightly proud of them

- Nick McGrath

BRIDESHEAD Revisited's alluring seductress says she is taking a onewoman stand against the cosmetic surgery popular among stars of a certain age. "A huge number of my contemporaries have had nips and tucks," admits Diana Quick in her customary cut-glass chic. "I feel like I'm fighting a rearguard action." No longer sporting the iconic auburn bob of Lady Julia Flyte, which helped earn the doomed affections of Jeremy Irons' sexually tortured army officer Charles Ryder - plus a Bafta nomination, ticket to Hollywood and coverline branding her the "most beautiful woman in the world" - but today still striking, her ash grey hair matches the January sky. Yet Quick is anything but glacial, as she discusses her new movie, aptly named Forever Young.

In the thought-provoking romantic science fiction thriller, Quick, who has a 39-year-old daughter Mary, and two grand-daughters, with former second husband Bill Nighy plays disillusioned 70-year-old writer Robyn, whose creeping ennui is jolted by an experimental new age-reversing drug, which also promises to eradicate regret.

Robyn soon embarks on a contradictory journey of physical and emotional regression. But would Quick, 77, have been first in the queue for such a miracle concoction in real life? "My knee-jerk reaction is to say I wouldn't go back, but then she hadn't had a child, as she'd had an abortion, her career was stalling," she says of her character.