Whether you go to Turkey or Mexico, China or Australia, find time to involve yourself with the people you're dealing with.

I've covered a lot of ground geographically and emotionally and for years I lost my connection with my family. But the best comfort you can have, whether you are on the phone or sitting there in the living room with them, is with your parents, and to me family has always meant protection. When you smile you get a smile back, unconditionally.

Being a mother is the best thing that ever happened to me. Before you have your first baby you are a girl and then you become a mother. There is no transition into being a woman; you literally become a mum and being a mum means you always love someone else more than yourself and it is an unexplainable situation.

When you makes movies, you usually make good money. But it is also a very tough job. Once you enter the public's eye, you have to be aware that you give up a huge part of your own life. And it is never a job from nine to five.

My childhood was really comfortable and secure, but school was a nightmare. I was a lot taller than the other girls and they called me Gitte the giraffe.

I go every year to the Huvafen Fushi in the Maldives and it's spectacular.

I was shooting a bikini promotion in Mahe in the Seychelles in 1980 when there was a military coup and I, along with a roomful of other people, ended up being kidnapped and held hostage at gunpoint in a windowless room with no ventilation for 36 hours.