Actress

I've never felt stigmatized in my profession, nor have I allowed myself to. I don't feel either male or female, I feel I am just me, and I should be able to do whatever I like.

I've never felt stigmatized in my profession, nor have I allowed myself to. I don't feel either male or female, I feel I am just me, and I should be able to do whatever I like.

Somebody referred to me as a ringleader, which I wouldn't have classed myself as, but anyway, there you go.

You can have a laugh in Los Angeles, or you can weep in Los Angeles, depending on your attitude towards it.

Insecurity, commonly regarded as a weakness in normal people, is the basic tool of the actor's trade.

I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.

I wouldn't want to go back to my 20s; they were pretty angst-laden times.

If you only took on roles that had the same qualities, then I suppose it might make a critic feel better, if he can see some kind of bedrock. Perhaps that's the old definition of a star, someone who's always going to come up with the same goods. But it intimates limitation to me and I don't want to think of the job like that.

Why did I not stop to have children? I suppose because the opportunity didn't present itself. Yes, many women feel they are not complete without having children, but I have different creative outlets.

It's a wonderful profession, and it opens lots of doors, and I think it's quite right that people can accuse actors and actresses of being dilettante, but you learn on every job, whatever it is, the process moves you on in some way, and yeah, I want to expand my knowledge of our existence, I suppose.

My roots are still in Britain, that's where I live, that's the place where I come from.

I'm not someone who can lie on a beach and do nothing. I am not sure what you are supposed to do, so I get bored. I prefer to have a purpose, such as going to Alaska to see orca whales.

The writing is the springboard for your intuitive stuff and then you see, maybe a colour of what you want to achieve. Then you bring in the technique you've learnt. But when you're on film, you're not always in control of that. That's what makes me believe in a kind of collective unconscious, a sort of experience you draw on.

It sounds ideal, a sort of beach childhood. But it wasn't really. I didn't use the beach very much at all.

I like the personality of the Belgians. They're deeply eccentric, which is something that comes across in their design - terrific.

You can't please all the people all the time.

It makes me feel resilient when you tackle different things.

In my industry, everybody wants to know everything about you, and it's just dumb. I think the only way of maintaining some of that mystique is by not giving away too much about yourself. It has served me well so far. I never want to feel up for grabs.

I have no idea what my persona would be. As far as I'm concerned, I'm changing all the time.

And there's no way I'm going to do Dame Edna.