Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Cate Blanchett: Sheba Hart

Photos 

Quotes 

• Sheba Hart : What you say about me, about Richard - you're not fit to shine his shoes. And Ben, and Polly, that I'd be happier without them. Why did you do it?

  [slaps Barbara] 

  Sheba Hart : Because I didn't help you collect your cat?

  [slaps Barbara again] 

  Sheba Hart : You've cost me my family!

  Barbara Covett : No, no, take some responsibility! I gave you EXACTLY what you wanted! You'd still be stuck in that marriage without me.

  Sheba Hart : What?

  Barbara Covett : You can't accept it yet, but...

  Sheba Hart : You think I wanted to be here with you?

  Barbara Covett : You need me, I'm your friend!

  Sheba Hart : You put me in prison, I could get TWO years!

  Barbara Covett : They'll fly by! I'll visit you every week! We've so much life to live together!

  Sheba Hart : You think this is a love affair? A relationship? What, sticky gold stars, and - and a strand of my hair? A sticker from Pizza Express? It's a flat in the Archway Road and you think you're Virginia frigging Woolf! And where did you get my hair? Did you pluck it from the bath with some special fucking tweezers?

  Barbara Covett : You know it's rude to read a person's diary, it's private!

  Sheba Hart : We're not companions! We're not friends! You don't even like me!

  Barbara Covett : That's not true, I only have tender feelings for you, only love!

  Sheba Hart : You're barking, fucking mad. You don't know how to love. You have never, your whole life. Me, Jennifer Dodd. You're nothing but waste and disappointment! You bitter old virgin. You're lonely for a reason. They loathed you at school, all of them. I was the idiot who bothered, but only because no one told me you're a fucking vampire! So what is it, Bar? You want to roll around the floor like lovers? You want to fuck me, Barbara?

  Barbara Covett : Please don't diminish our...

  Sheba Hart : Our WHAT? What?

  Barbara Covett : Give it back. I know you! Selfish and vain, you think you have a divine right! You don't belong in the world, you belong here! You big baby!

• [Barbara is upstairs, watching Sheba and Richard having a blazing row about her affair with Steven Connolly] 

  Barbara Covett : [voiceover]  By the time I took my seat in the Gods, the opera was well into its final act.

  Richard Hart : You're his teacher!

  Sheba Hart : And you were mine! I'm not justifying. I'm not trying to justify it...

  Richard Hart : You are so full of shit! It's totally different. You were twenty!

  Sheba Hart : He's sixteen in May. He's not some innocent...

  Richard Hart : Of course he's innocent! He's fucking fifteen! Are you insane? If you meant to destroy us, why not do it with an adult? That's the convention, it's worked for centuries!

• Sheba Hart : So that's your vicious father?

  Steven Connolly : You wanted a sob story, I gave it to you. Made you feel like Bob Geldof.

  Sheba Hart : You lied to me!

  Steven Connolly : Ooooh, sorry, Miss! What, would you prefer it if I lived in a shithole?

  Sheba Hart : And your mother?

  Steven Connolly : I think she's gonna pull through. What do you want? What're you doin' here?

• Steven Connolly : What're you having for tea, Miss?

  Sheba Hart : I don't know, I'll probably buy something on the way home.

  Steven Connolly : Are you a good cook?

  Sheba Hart : Not really.

  Steven Connolly : You suck?

  Sheba Hart : [turns around and notices Steven's sly grin]  Go home, Steven.

• Sheba Hart : This is going to sound sick, but something in me felt... entitled. You know, I've been good all my adult life. I've been a decent wife, a dutiful mother coping with Ben. This voice inside me kept saying "why shouldn't you be bad, why shouldn't you transgress? I mean, you've earned the right."

• Steven Connolly : [after he and Sheba have made love for the first time]  Can I smoke, Miss?

  Sheba Hart : You can do what you want, but enough of this 'Miss'.

  Steven Connolly : [laughs]  Were you a model once?

  [shakes her head] 

  Steven Connolly : Well you should've been. You're well fit.

  Sheba Hart : Gosh but don't I know it.

  Steven Connolly : [smiles]  You're into The Streets?

  Sheba Hart : Mmm, no, my daughter is.

  Steven Connolly : She the same age as me?

  Sheba Hart : None of your beeswax.

  [grinning] 

  Steven Connolly : [laughs]  Well, anyway, the point is - you're fit.

  Sheba Hart : So are you.

  Steven Connolly : You reckon? My sister thinks I look like a bollock with measles.

  [pause as Sheba smiles and watches him] 

  Sheba Hart : You've done my brain in.

• Sheba Hart : My father always used to say... you know, on the tube..."Mind the gap".

  Barbara Covett : Oh um...

  Sheba Hart : I don't know... it's just the distance between life as you... dream it, and... life as it is.

  Barbara Covett : I know exactly what you mean.

• Steven Connolly : Do you want to do it again?

  Sheba Hart : Yes...

  [smiles nervously and nods] 

  Sheba Hart : I wanna do it again.

• Sheba Hart : I hadn't been pursued like this for years... I knew it was wrong, and immoral, and completely ridiculous, but, I don't know. I just allowed it to happen.

  Barbara Covett : The boy is fifteen!

  Sheba Hart : But he's quite mature for his age!

• Sheba Hart : When you started teaching, didn't you want to give them a real education to help overcome... the poverty of their backgrounds?

  Barbara Covett : Oh yes, of course. Bu one soon learns that teaching is crowd control. We're a branch of the social services.

  Sue Hodge : Console yourself with the gems. That's when it's satisfying. Then you can make a real difference.

  Barbara Covett : The rest is just cattle-prod and pray.

• Barbara Covett : When I was at school, if one of us had had some bad news or was a bit down, we used to stroke each other. You know, someone would do one arm and someone else the other. It was a wonderful sensation. Did you do that at your school?

  Sheba Hart : [embarrassed]  No.

  [Barbara looks down at Sheba's cleavage] 

  Barbara Covett : It's incredibly relaxing - for the giver and the receiver.

  [Barbara takes Sheba's hands in hers] 

  Barbara Covett : Close your eyes. It doesn't work if you don't.

  [Barbara starts to stroke her fingers up and down Sheba's forearms] 

  Barbara Covett : That's a good girl.

  [Sheba pulls away, her face showing revulsion] 

  Sheba Hart : I think that's enough.

  Barbara Covett : No, close your eyes.

  Sheba Hart : [firmly]  I really think that's enough, Barbara.

• Sheba Hart : We never invited you to the fucking Dordogne!

  Barbara Covett : I'm sorry, but you specifically said if I happened to be in France I should drop in.

  Sheba Hart : We didn't mean it!

  Barbara Covett : Well, fine. I won't come then.

• [about the relationship between Steven and Sheba] 

  Barbara Covett : Well, that's when you should've stopped it.

  Sheba Hart : I did! I told him I wouldn't teach him any more. But he refused to accept it, he just kept coming back. It began to feel like our secret, and well, secrets can be... seductive.

• Sheba Hart : [touches Steven's cheek]  It's incredibly important we keep this secret. Does anyone know you're here?

  Steven Connolly : No.

  [pause, Sheba sits down with him] 

  Steven Connolly : Miss. I'm no genius, but I ain't a dickhead. I won't tell no one. You can trust me.

  Sheba Hart : We'd both get into terrible trouble.

  [they kiss and start to make love] 

• Barbara Covett : The day we met... it had already begun?

  Sheba Hart : [pause]  Yes.

  Barbara Covett : Had you had any further relations that day?

  Sheba Hart : We went to the art room.

  Barbara Covett : [sarcastically]  Well I'm glad I was such an aphrodisiac. I was trying to help you.

• Barbara Covett : Courage, mon brave!

  Sheba Hart : [kisses her fingers and throws them in the air] 

  Barbara Covett : [voice-over]  And bon voyage, to her little leprechaun! Sheba and I share a deep understanding now. No one can violate our magnificent complicity.

• Steven Connolly : [throws cigarette]  They're going to expel me now!

  Sheba Hart : No, they won't. I'll get the blame if she tells.

  Steven Connolly : As if she won't!

  Sheba Hart : She - likes me, she might not.

  Steven Connolly : She likes you, huh? Like that? You givin' her one and all?

  Sheba Hart : Why are you being so cruel? Why, Steven?

  Steven Connolly : I really like you. You're a nice person, and you've been cool, and it's been great, okay? But it's supposed to be fun. Now it's a serious thing. Whatever shit you're working out, you know, with your husband, your kid, you - I don't know. I can't help you.

• [Barbara demands that Sheba must come with her to see her cat put down. Richard tells her to get back in the car so they can go see their son in his school play] 

  Sheba Hart : [to Richard]  Give me a minute, will you? I can handle this.

  Barbara Covett : Oh, I'm to be "handled", am I? Like toxic waste. You see me on sufference. I'm an imposition to be tolerated.

• [from trailer] 

  Sheba Hart : You think this is a love affair?