I enjoyed making people laugh. I discovered that I loved that power over them. On stage, I felt I could really express who I was for the first time.

A pilot is like the most extensive dress rehearsal you can ever imagine, because the writers are learning about the actors, the actors are learning about the characters.

I didn't want to get married, and I didn't want kids - I knew I wanted to act.

I think the wonderful thing about doing theater is that it's more of an actor's medium. I think that film is more of a director's medium. You can't edit something out on stage. It's there.

My family was going back to England to visit my mother's grandmother, who was very ill. We went up to Liverpool and I met my great-aunt, who was just a force of nature. She was an elocution teacher and a huge enthusiast for theater and the classics. I took her amateur acting class, and she was really impressed with me.

I've been playing sexually aware women most of my life. At this point I expected to be playing moms and wives. It's exciting to play a femme fatale.

I don't want to be in boardrooms talking about hiring hairdressers and minivans. I'm not good at it, and I don't like to hire and fire people. I hate that. It's horrible.

When you're filming, you work 19-hour days, and you know more about what's going on with your crew and co-workers than you do with your husband.

I prefer younger men. In some ways, they are much more open to a woman being stronger and independent then some of the men my age.

I got to L.A., and they said I had to lose weight, let my hair grow and buy some dresses. I was nailing auditions with my readings, but they wouldn't hire me because I wasn't putting on the glam. It just didn't occur to me.

Art is an expression of who you are. Parts that I play are my sculptures.

I don't read reviews because if they're bad I'm devastated and if they're good I get a big head.

I first wanted to be an actress after seeing a play - not a movie.

I sort of have a love affair with my work. Many of us work far too hard and we don't put enough value in the epicurean, sensual part of life.

I've always thought that less was a lot more.

My experiences in film and theatre in the States have been much more rigorous-in England there's an environment of, Let's try this.

Since doing the show I've been so busy that I've not really had time to mope.

That's what life is - you follow where your heart leads you - at least I do.

Theatre can't be done again and again and again and again - it's organic.

I try not to listen to the shoulds or coulds, and try to get beyond expectations, peer pressure, or trying to please - and just listen. I believe all the answers are ultimately within us.

Being a biological mother just isn't part of my experience this time around. However, I am a mother who continues to give birth to ideas and ways of experiencing life that challenge the norm.

There are many ways to be a mother. I have a lot of young actors I mentor, and my nieces and my nephews need a lot of love.

When I got out of my Twenties I stopped playing women that were victims. I like playing women who are strong and have a piece of mind.

Theatre is immediate, it's alive, you're there with the audience, it can't be done again and again and again and again, it's organic.

Your dressing area should be your private space.

You have to be desirable. And that's why so many woman of my age or even younger are pushed to Botox and plastic surgery, all the things that people say, 'Why do women do this?' Where do you go in your 50s in your career?

I don't know many women who can relate to Sharon Stone and the kind of movies she does. I don't know a lot of guys who can relate to Tom Cruise's movies because they're on a kind of fantastic level. I like movies I can relate to.

Looking good has never been the most important thing to me. Maybe it's because I'm more conventionally, um, acceptable, so it's not an issue for me. I don't know.

There's a look people get in their eyes when you're talking to them and they're not seeing you, and you know it's because they have a movie running through their head.

I have a big appetite, and staying on top of that is about knowing myself and saying, 'I can eat that today, but tomorrow I'm not going to.'

The older I get, the less jarring I want my exercise to be, and I find that a long walk is equally as helpful and satisfying as a three-mile jog.

I like to step outside of what people's idea of me might be. I suppose that makes me a bit of a rule-breaker. I like to take chances.

It's easy to diet or get off a diet when you've got a juicy role to play.

I always assumed that, like my mother before me, one day I would have children. When I was 5, my fantasy was to have a hundred dogs and a hundred kids.

I don't think I'm vain... but I do like to be lit well.

I wanted to understand pain and the human condition, which is full of pain and regret and sadness - and some happiness, if you're lucky.

It was difficult when I was very young because I was so separated from my family. When I was at school or acting in a play, I felt very much part of something, and then it would always change, and I would be by myself.

I have a very healthy dose of self-loathing. But I think we all have a past of being whatever our story was, of feeling not good enough. It can propel you to work harder and do more, but it can also be a tremendous trap, and you can't see beyond it.

I've realized that the most important thing I can do to look good is just treat myself well, whether it's getting a nice, long massage or just lying low and not going out every single night.

I am not interested in being a Barbie doll and turning myself into a sausage for the next 20 years. I want to follow actresses like Helen Mirren and Judi Dench who have lines on their faces and aren't afraid of playing their age.

What would be really difficult is to be sitting on a beach. There's vacations, and there's vegetations. I don't do well vegetating.

I was a bit odd as a kid, because there were so little outlets for me. There was no theatre except for the odd community theatre and school shows. The only movie theatre was at the Canadian Forces Base nearby in Comox, so it either showed kiddie flicks for the families and restricted stuff for the men.

I consider myself a feminist living in a post-feminist era.

Shows like 'Sex and the City' got women involved again in a political way. They were drawn into the personal stories of the four women who together make up one complete cosmopolitan woman. We want to have community, and the show filled that void in our lives: friendship between women.

I'm not expecting much work in Hollywood, to be honest. People stick to film because they tend to get offered the same roles over and over again, and it's safe. But I'm not interested in doing that.

If I only did theatre I would have had to waitress, and I didn't want to waitress.

Most people look at ageing as a disease. They do. They have prescriptions and places where you go to eradicate it.

I'm drawn to roles because they excite me intellectually and emotionally.

If I didn't work in television or film, if I didn't have the right look, I never took it personally. Because there was always the theatre. I'm not a nihilist, I'm an optimist. And that has served me well in this profession.

I did a school play when I was 10 where I played a cold germ infecting a whole classroom of kids. The play was called 'Piffle It's Only a Sniffle.' I'd never had so much fun. It was a thrill.