Joan Plowright, who has died aged 95, is remembered by her friend and fellow member of the budding National Theatre company in the 1960s

• Michael Billington: Plowright was a dynamic force
• Peter Bradshaw: Her screen career blossomed with age
• Joan Plowright: a life in pictures

I’d seen Joan on stage before I joined her in the National Theatre company at the Old Vic in the 1960s. So I had admired her from afar: that kind of acting, those kinds of plays, when she was at the Royal Court. The realism was a jump forward rather than fantasy-land. I’d come from weekly rep, where there wasn’t much time to delve into your character, the parts weren’t deeply emotional and you were lucky if you could remember the lines of that week’s play. So it was quite a gear change.

How lucky I was to be a part of it all at the Vic with Derek Jacobi, Louise Purnell and other close friends who came from that time. We went through a lot of wonderful things together. Joan was fun and funny, lovely to act with. And Laurence Olivier was this great leader of the British theatre who brought us all together and instilled the right kind of feeling among us. Of course, going on tour you got to know each other even better because you were all thrown together.