I think it helps to have a good old-fashioned trajectory, plodding along. Obviously one has an ego and it's really easy to have that ego tickled, but what helps me get through the night is if I concentrate on just quality of work so that I don't panic about my profile.

You can't worry too much about profile; otherwise, you become a different kind of actor, and that's not the kind of actor I want to be.

I didn't really know anything about Margot Fonteyn. I'd never really been a ballet child, so I had no idea what an incredibly huge icon she was, not just in terms of a creative icon - she was also a style icon. I had no idea she was up there with Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis in terms of that kind of image.

I think creative people need to do a bit of, you know, tuning into every radio station - you just do, otherwise you don't know much about other people. You kind of have to learn a bit about yourself so you can work out how we all behave and why we do the things we do.

There are some roles you just don't say 'no' to. Those compass points: you get them so rarely as an actress.

I just would like to keep going. If I kept getting the kind of work that I've been getting for the last 20 years for the next 20, I'd be a bloody Dame of the British Empire. I'd be so happy.

That's the trouble with the suburbs: it's not a city, so you're not anonymous, and it's not a small town, so that people really care about you, but everybody kind of knows each other's business, so you're very judged.