It was tremendous fun while it lasted, but I didn’t want to get into a rut, and I think there was the danger of this, had I continued.

And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d...

I want to work with great people. Great people really make you better.

Relatives cannot help you in the studios,” she says. “You stand or fall by your own efforts.

I don’t want to marry again. I did that.

I didn’t want to throw like an actress.

The odd thing for me is the focus on looks which happened in the States. I’d always felt that was not going to be a strong point.

My father was in the civil service. I can remember standing in a bus shelter in the pouring rain, and that we were allowed candy floss at the end of the holiday if we had...

As an actor, particularly because I’m – I would call myself a character actor. I change my look, my physical appearance and my body, my hair color, my whatever all the time for a role.

That’s what is great about what I do, going from one job to the other.

I would sooner play in a good British picture than in the majority of American pictures I have seen.

I think – I think I’ve always been kind of – I used to think of myself as a piece of rubber when I was a kid because I was kind of very shy and...

I’m told leather drives men up the wall. I like wearing it because it because it feels nice.

When really you’ve gone to drama school and rep and then you’ve come to London and gone to auditions and you’ve worked, solidly, for years. But that all gets forgotten.

Really, in a way, I took over the male role.

But I don’t want anybody to say have the right to say well if you bloody Brits don’t like it go home. And they have the right to say that if you haven’t become a...

You don’t have to be alone with your thoughts anymore. You don’t have to process anything. You can call up someone to do something to instantly make you sort of feel better.

Having done lifestyle books and being an actress, I suppose it made sense to bring the two together. I think that’s what happened.

I’m also doing constant book readings, movies. You name it, I’m doing it.

Apart from anything else, I find boots are too hot except in wintry weather. At home I usually wear a sweater, shirt and slacks.

I found it all very scary. This fairytale gets built around you – as if you’ve been walking through the streets and then Sydney Pollack sees you and goes, ‘I’ll put you in something!’

South Africa is the most beautiful country I have been to. Canada is also hugely underrated.

But I’m looking at life, and I’m putting nothing off.

I’ve been playing music since I was 12 and I like to play in a band. It takes the place of theatre for me, the live performance element.

I learned basic cookery from my mom, taught myself cake techniques and then got fed up with my own cakes not looking as good as the ones in the shops.

It eats you up. It eats you up. And you have to – I had a lot of help. I had a lot of therapy. And I was able to – because it was hard,...