It`s fabulous playing an actor. You`re not going through her actors` hell, so it`s quite nice to play it and look at it and have a laugh at it.

The money isn`t a lure. I`ve done very well out of this business.

It seems that when you get to a certain age you almost give yourself permission to misbehave and say what you think. People allow it, with very old people.

I didn`t come into the business to get awards or titles.

I`d be hopeless at directing. I`m not the type. You`ve got to really know what you`re doing and be quite controlling. It`s a very lonely job.

I never had any acting heroes. I never really went to the theatre.

I`m too young at 50. I`m not grown up yet. There`s part of everybody like that.

I`m massively talented, and very, very beautiful in person; the public don`t really realise that.

I can understand why people get annoyed at being remembered for one thing, but a lot of actors aren`t remembered for anything. I don`t mind that.

I was always someone who lived in the future all the time, it was always the next thing - dreams of escape.

I think comedy`s something you can`t learn. It`s an instinct, which makes it rather elusive.

I`m writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that`s what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.

I was having my teens in my 30s.

Stage is the most exciting. Film is lovely, because it`s like a family.

I don`t like being out of the crowd. It`s lonely within a group.

It`s bloody great to get to fifty-five. I`ve never been bothered about people knowing how old I am.

I couldn`t watch Tom and Jerry. The cruelty was too much. I had all these strange images, of tiny animals, all mixed up.

When I think of the future, I think of doing my washing so I`ve something to wear tomorrow.

I was asked about doing a nude shoot for men`s magazine GQ. I thought it was the funniest thing I`d ever heard.

I keep seeing myself in my daughter, and I see my mother in me and in her. Bloody hell.

Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.

I don`t know if you can change things, but it`s a drop in the ocean.

I never wanted to become an actress because I`d read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

Suddenly, you are very much in the present, and you learn it`s really the place where you should always live.

I wanted above all else not to be like my mum.

My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want.

Some people have a terrible stretch between family and work. It is a difficult thing to achieve.

I felt my mother about the place. I don`t think she haunts me, but I wouldn`t put it past her.

I`m more selective now I`ve got a family. I don`t want to work all the time. My daughter`s 12; I don`t want to miss out on her life. Soon she`ll be a teenager; she won`t want me around.

I always loved my mother, felt loved, but she was judgmental. Her father in Ireland didn`t approve of women generally, and she took on his values. She believed her own mother was foolish.

I`m interested in politics, what`s going on in the world, how people behave and how your life is often in the hands of other people.

I`ve never done so much bloody crying in my life. I was always moaning about how hard it was when we were shooting, how awful I felt.

Self worth is everything. Without it life is a misery.

I`m too old to be learning stuff, really. I spent weeks and weeks on that tiny bit of dance. Had it been slow stuff, it would`ve been easy.

I`d like to think there`ll be too much of real life going on for me to want to do much acting.

I`d love to be in another film, but they haven`t asked me. I think it`s a shame but the prospects of me doing another one now are remote. Please do campaign on my behalf.

I can talk myself so much into my part.

It`s very strong after the birth. It`s extraordinary. You can`t watch anything to do with kids being harmed.

I don`t want to give up acting - it`s what I am.

That`s why I`m an actress - escaping into a world.

Being a mother adds another emotional dimension, a feel for children that I didn`t have before I had one. They were a pain before.

The characters do have a life of their own; it`s weird.

I was asked about doing a nude shoot for men`s magazine GQ. I thought it was the funniest thing I`d ever heard.

As soon as I gave birth, it was as if you understand them. They become people, not kids. You start to identify with them. You see yourself in them.