The more you do it, the more you learn to concentrate, as a child does, incredibly intensively and then you sort of have to relax. I remember the first film I did, the lead actor would in between scenes be reading a newspaper or sleeping and I'd think, 'How can you do that?'

I think most beauty tips that work and last are kind of old.

Maybe this is my morality coming in again but it was important to me that the actor [ in Notes On A Scandal] was above the age of consent. Although really, what's the difference between 15 and 16? It's the law, yeah, but he's very mature.

I had never done anything with blue screen before, or prosthetics, or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But, to be honest, I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head.Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.

I feel like I've been marinated in Australian theatre.

People talk about the golden age of Hollywood because of how women were lit then. You could be Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and work well into your 50s, because you were lit and made into a goddess. Now, with everything being sort of gritty, women have this sense of their use-by date.

I think often women can feel isolated and feel like they get into a rut and don't quite know how to get out of it.