I don't want to be caught ... ashamed of anything. And because generally someone who has bipolar doesn't have just bipolar, they have bipolar, and they have a life and a job and a kid and a hat and parents, so its not your overriding identity, it's just something that you have, but not the only thing - even if it's quite a big thing.

Then I overdosed at 28, at which point I began to accept the bipolar diagnosis.

Acting engenders and harbours qualities that are best left way behind in adolesence.

I rarely think about my childhood. It's a slippery thing I can't keep hold of for long - it slithers out of my grasp. And a lot of the time I remember what was missing instead of what was there. I am a chronicler of absence.

I've never met a deadline I couldn't miss. I make sure my editors know this.

There are very few women from my mother's generation who worked like that, who just kept a career going all her life and raised children and had horrible relationships and lost all her money and got it back again.

I grew up knowing that I had the prettiest mother of anyone in my class.