I used to be so intensely preoccupied by unhappiness... now there are times where you might get down, but you can move on much faster now.

If you're feeling insecure and you need to feel special, the best place to go is somewhere foreign where people treat you as special because you're different.

Life is too short to live on low-fat everything.

Baths are my favorite thing. I can have two, three a day.

I've realised that I am who I am and that is it. Like it or lump it. I'm not around to please anyone any more, and it's a huge relief.

As a younger actor you want to be approved of, you want to gain respect, be admired. All of those things. To say: 'This is me playing this character. And aren't I fantastic!' I don't feel that so much now.

If anyone says, 'Let's have a girls' night out,' I will run in the opposite direction.

I think people do work too much. I've never been able to understand the whole 'make hay while the sun shines' thing. Either I want to work or I don't want to work.

I do not want to pour out my heart to the world. I am cautious of what I say and to whom.

My body is a baby machine.

I think the sheer number of pop stars has kind of drowned out, somewhat, our interest. We're just submerged.

People will now go to films with subtitles, you know. They're not afraid of them. It's one of the upsides of text-messaging and e-mail. Maybe the only good thing to come of it.

French is a foreign language, but I've been speaking it since I was 18 so it's second nature to me.

You don't choose a film because it's made by a woman, you choose it because it's good.

As an adult, it's a huge shock to be orphaned; as a child it's just hideous, ghastly.

I'm a bit of a Doubting Thomas - always worrying about things.

Now, playing a love interest can be really thrilling, if you're working opposite thrilling people.

I am sure that, had I grown up with both parents, had I grown up in a safe environment, had I grown up with a feeling of safety rather than danger, I would not be the way I am.

When I speak English, I've been told, I have this patrician way of speaking that's very irritating. It's the whole class thing.

Sometimes, I think I could have been a major movie star with the vast mansion and staff. I look at my Volvo and think it could be a limousine. I think of the roles I turned down. But then I wouldn't have had any children.

I'm very wary of trust, you see.

If you are a successful actor, which is what I am, then you tend to get labelled very quickly and easily.

I still absolutely love 'The Sound of Music' and anything with Julie Andrews in it.

I mean, my father was killed when I was six. And I only have tiny, tiny flashes of memory.

I have never met a woman who works who doesn't feel guilty. I mean we all deny it like crazy but deep down there is always that voice saying you should be at home.

I like the idea that I'm making things that people might think and argue about.

'The English Patient' was a huge turning point in my career and my life; it became this huge thing. But the whole Oscar build-up got completely out of control; I spent more time talking about that film than I spent making it!

Having a career is a bit like navigating an Atlantic crossing - you have to make sure everything is keeping and is balanced.

The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.

I can't move back to England. My home is in France now. I'd love to but I can't. My family's all there now.

It doesn't make you feel very good being mean and fierce; it is much nicer playing people who are kind and sweet.

I try to make films that I find exciting. It makes me want to get out of bed at five in the morning, have my make-up done and play for the rest of the day.

I know people think that I always play these characters who are in control and can chop someone's head off with a look.

I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.

Often, the roles I'm offered in England are melancholic women who are filled with regret for the past, regret for their fading beauty.

I really like acting in French. It's actually quite different for me, from acting in English. It's fun acting in a foreign language. You're liberated or freed from preconceptions.

The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.

I'm not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I'm too feeble.

Films are just consumables.

It's very hard having a career in different continents and two different languages.

We all come in different shapes and sizes, and that's fine by me.

There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.

We older women in Europe are lucky not to be shoved away in a drawer.

With the theatre, your whole day is geared towards the evening's show, and that's the job. People usually go to work about 9 and come home around 5, or maybe 7.

I think in most jobs, you get better as you get older. You gain experience, you gain knowledge.

You have to think about whether that Mercedes-Benz you have is actually worth how much it costs to you.

My life is European.

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

I'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms.

I know I can be bolshy and really unpleasant, and it always happens if I lose confidence in the people I'm working with. If I've got no confidence in what I'm doing and they don't provide me with some assurance that we're doing the right thing then I bully people. I'm a horrible bully.