Parenting & Family Quote by Robbie Coltrane

It lands like a throwaway boast, but the joke is doing real work: Robbie Coltrane inflates a domestic truth into industrial scale, turning parenting into infrastructure. “Stamina” is already a loaded word in celebrity life, where endurance gets mythologized as grit or talent. Coltrane reroutes it back to the messy, unglamorous arena of children who simply will not stop. The power-station comparison is funny because it’s miscalibrated on purpose; no sane person measures kid-energy in megawatts. That absurdity flatters the listener into the same exhausted recognition: yes, this is what it feels like.

The line also carries a quiet defense. “Believe me” signals he’s anticipating doubt or minimization, as if the public assumes an actor’s life is too cushioned to understand real fatigue. Coltrane, often cast as imposing and capable, plays against type here. He’s not presenting himself as the tireless big man; he’s conceding he’s outmatched, and he does it without self-pity.

Context matters because Coltrane’s persona was built on bigness - physical presence, booming warmth, comic authority. By crediting his children with superior stamina, he shifts that bigness into affectionate humility. It’s a parent’s brag disguised as a complaint, a way of saying: my kids are forces of nature, and I’m proud of them even as they run me into the ground.