Actress

I'm a total stationery fiend - I have drawers and drawers of lovely printed cards and wrapping paper.

I hope to be still acting when I'm 70 on TV, film and theatre.

I don't like dirt. Cleanliness is high on my agenda, but I don't have a phobia of dirt. I'm just not keen on it. I don't really like dirty people or houses or smelly things.

Life is simply too short to think about everything you put in your mouth, and it's not good for children to see you picking over bits of salad.

I don't punish myself. Life's too short.

There are all sorts of ways you can take somebody's identity or change your own, and a million things you can do with it once you have. It's quite incredible.

When I grew up in central London, we had six pavement slabs for a garden.

I have quite a lot of anxiety dreams.

Coming from a family where the parents had been together for 40 years, you never imagine that divorce is going to happen to you.

Something like a divorce does change you, but children change you more, and now I've had three.

I worked in McDonald's, but I didn't mind it. You got free cheeseburgers. I love eating a bit of junk food.

There's nowhere to hide in the theatre. You can't be the one in rehearsal who doesn't know their lines.

I love washing, hoovering, ironing, you name it. I find it very therapeutic.

'Upstairs Downstairs' and 'Downton Abbey' appeal to people because they're about our history, they look so beautiful, are written by amazing writers and have high production values.

Yes, I'm anal. I am just really organised.

I do love playing aristocrats, probably because it's so against type. So much more interesting than playing a version of yourself.

When you think about such fine actors as Maggie Smith or Michael Gambon, they do all mediums. I think it would be quite sad and a bit dull just to have to stick to one. I like all of them.

If I was ambitious in my career, then I would have moved to the United States and given it a good go at films.

Marriage and being a mother are absolutely crucial to my happiness and my life.

I've stopped worrying about whether people think what I do is any good. I've taken stick in the past, and I've genuinely worried and got incredibly upset.