There are few guarantees in life, but one thing you can always be sure of is that if Miriam Margolyes is a guest on a TV show, you’re in for some laughs.
The Harry Potter star has become a regular on the likes of The Graham Norton Show and This Morning, and is known for telling outrageous stories and anecdotes.
Having also fronted her own travel shows and appeared on The Real Marigold Hotel, we’ve seen a lot of her outside of her comfort zone too, which always serves up some hilarity.
So if you’re in need of a pick-me-up or a few laughs right now, here’s 20 of our favourite Miriam moments.
1. When she let off “an enormous fart” in the This Morning studio
“You outed me!” Miriam said.
2. But that isn’t the only time she’s let one rip in famous company, as Graham Norton can attest
“I fart a lot. But I think it brings people together. I do! I think it’s an encouraging, human thing to do.”
3. When she admitted to having “a wank last week”and “throughly enjoying it”
In a special message to a fan, she also gifted them a surprise fart “especially for” them. We’re sure it’s just what they’d always wanted.
4. When she regaled us with her tales of recording an audio sex tape
They were made strictly in a professional capacity, she insisted.
5. Her story of meeting the queen was suitably on brand – for both Miriam and Her Majesty
One was not amused.
6. When Miriam went to a waterpark and generated an instantly memeable moment
“This is a fackin’ nightmare!”
7. When she called Mama Mia “a dreadful film” in front of one of its stars
Awkward. And for the record, she is wrong.
8. She wasn’t a fan of Marta Kauffman, the co-creator of Friends, either
“I thought she was a monster.”
9. Winona Ryder has also been the subject of Miriam’s brutal honesty
You could never accuse Miriam of being fake.
10. When she “started to cream” in her knickers when she met Laurence Olivier
Matthew Perry described hearing the story as “the worst moment of my life”.
11. When her age suddenly dawned on her
“Fuck! That’s old.”
12. When she explained why she always carries loo roll
“You’ve either got to be prepared or have a very tough sphincter, and I don’t know that I have.”
13. When she had this hilarious but actually quite bleak birthday message for a fan on cameo
“Have a wank, have a fuck.. Enjoy yourself… But remember there is a real world outside, which is cruel, and people die.”
14. When she told the story about a flat she rented out being used as a drugs drop for £30 million of cocaine
“They were calling me Miriam Escobar!”
15. When she told Alan Cumming he couldn’t live his life “being frightened of Madonna”
Words to live by, we’re sure you agree.
16. When she threatened to pull a camera off a campervan toilet wall
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Get the fucking thing off, before I pull it off.”
17. When she recalled offering to “suck off” an American solider
“That was before I was a lesbian, I was sorting myself out.”
18. When she had absolutely zero time for queue jumpers
Seriously, don’t mess with Mim.
19. When she read some accommodation she’d been put up in to filth
“Looking around, at this.. pretentious rabbit hutch.. there is no STYLE, there is no TASTE, there are no BOOKS!”
20. When she told the story of being arrested and strip-searched
“She examined me, my front botty and my back botty, and of course they thought I wouldn’t like it…”