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.

I only went along to youth theatre with a friend when I was young to try to make myself a bit more sociable. But the whole thing was quite sore; it really hurt me trying to get into drama school. It was a world I knew nothing about - it was very middle class; all that usual stuff. But I was young, determined, and I just went for it.

When I started drama school, theatre was the main draw. I never had any movie star notions. Not that there were family ties to the theatre, either.

I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.

The first thing that attracts me to any script is the writing. If I find myself becoming lost in a good yarn, then I feel certain that others will, too.

I sometimes think it's like a weird elastic band. The more tragic your work is, the quicker you snap back. There's a catharsis in telling a miserable old tale; you get rid of demons.

People can be a bit flagrant when they're having an affair. Most of the time, there's an element of it where they want to be discovered because they're in crisis. They need the boil to be burst, in some way, for a resolution.