Acting, and the privilege of being able to do it for a living, is so important to me. I don't turn up and just hope for the best. I really fret about it. I do my homework; I prepare myself for the experience of playing a particular character.
What I am very, very moved and struck by is that so many people in the world are often living a life that they hadn't planned for themselves. And they wake up one day and say, 'Hang on. Who am I? Is this really me? Is this what I really wanted?' And also, 'Can I change it? Have I got the courage to change it?'
I think any form of self-expression is half confidence, half sheer hard work and, maybe, a bit of talent thrown in.
I've decided I am going to start loving my backside because I don't know anyone who does that.
When I first read the script for 'A Little Chaos,' I just loved reading it, as it is a really lovely, accessible, contemporary period film.
When you're 21, you think, 'Oh God, when I'm 36, oh God, that's nearly 40 and I'll look really old and wrinkly by then.' And actually, I quite like the way I look.
Winning the Oscar was like winning all the prizes in one single night that I never won as a kid.
It's very tempting to have a nanny and live in a gated community and have a chef - I'd love to have a few dinners cooked for me. But I don't want that for my children. When they're older, if people say to them, 'Did you have a chef?' I want them to be shocked by the question.
Oh, I had, 'No one will ever fancy me!' I had that well into my teens. Even now I do not consider myself to be some kind of great, sexy beauty. I don't mind the way I'm ageing. No reason to panic just yet. I think I look my age, and that's fine.
Foie gras is sold as an expensive delicacy in some restaurants and shops. But no one pays a higher price for foie gras than the ducks and geese who are abused and killed to make it.
The happiness I feel in having a family has brought me a real beauty.
I often look at women who wear great jeans and high heels and nice little T-shirts wandering around the city, and I think, 'I should make more of an effort. I should look like that.' But then I think, 'They can't be happy in those heels.'
I was living in my lovely little two-bedroom flat in north London... and suddenly, I couldn't just walk down the street and buy a pint of milk.
I know the true meaning of getting by by the skin of my teeth; I do. It doesn't matter whether you've got money or you haven't, whether you're famous or not. This is the case for all women, actually; you have to carry on. You always have to carry on. And you can, because you have to.
Mum and Dad were very much friends and up for life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up; they just taught me to be me.
I've had a very full and lovely career so far, and I can't honestly say that I've ever really found myself in a man's world, struggling for an identity or trying to prove something.
It doesn't make any sense... that's why I trust it!
I was always quite good with accents - I always had quite a good ear - so from the age of about 13, I used to do a lot of voiceover and dubbing for foreign films.
When I was doing 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' I was asked, 'If there was one part of your life that you could erase, what would it be?' And I was so stunned by that. I thought: 'Nothing.' I would keep all the good bits and the bad bits, because those things made me who I am.
My life has taken me down several different paths I never expected it to take me down. Not in a million years.
