"There is no normality in life."

"I liked pretending to be other people: I could reinvent myself, reinvent my own reality."

"A film actor is just a victim of directors and editors."

"Wearing corsets all the time was completely incapacitating, as far as digestion goes."

"Mothers are the heart of any household. I try to spend as much time with my children as I possibly can while also fulfilling my professional duties. It is tricky, but I think I manage it."

"My father fell really chronically ill when I was 13 and that's when I phoned up an agent and started to act."

"When you write for very young children what they want is something familiar and safe and stereotyped."

"Fairytales have always got to have that scary quality, as long as you make them laugh."

"I never really wanted to grow up. I grew up really young. I moved out when I was 13 - that's when I started acting."

"I'm a late developer. I only moved out of home when I was 30."

"As everyone, you do end up becoming your mother, but also as you're acting, I find out you become every member of your family, bits come out without you really wanting them to come out."

"The parenting bit is much harder than the acting bit. You just never know what to do."

"My life had been very work-orientated, and all in close-up. Once I had the family, it went into sudden widescreen."

"I look completely like my mum. She's very foreign, very Jewish."

"I would pretend to be the French lieutenant's woman. I was always a romantic. I still am, actually."

"For me, acting is about getting away from myself. So to look at myself is the last thing I want."

"I don't think any actor wants their children to follow them into the profession."

"Why do you put your self esteem in the hands of complete strangers?"

"Who wants to be normal when you can be unique?"

"You just have to do what suits you, and it doesn't matter if you don't look like everybody else. Be you. That's our gift and we've got to celebrate that."

"Imperfection is underrated. Perfection is overrated."

"I just want to give you this one piece of advice: if you're standing and you could be sitting, sit. If you're sitting and you could be lying down, lie down."

"Be yourself. No one else can."

"His mouth is a no-go area. It's like kissing the Berlin Wall."