My husband wasn't put off by it - he thought it was hilarious to see me dressed as Dylan! He didn't particularly want to kiss me with stubble all over my face - it felt a bit odd! But I think he's used to it [the make-up process].

The great thing about theater is that when it's great, you'll remember it for the rest of your life. But if you go see ten shows, you'll only get five - if you're lucky - that'll give you that experience. But the rest, at the very least, will be interesting.

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.

It was fantastic to be able to have my kids on set. Dash, my eldest son, who’s not quite five, was into knights and his godmother had given him a plastic Marks & Spencer knights’ outfit and [first assistant director] Tommy Gormley said that he could stand to protect me during the scene where Clive [Owen] is talking about the immensity of sitting on the throne. I’m actually looking through an archway at my son standing in his knights’ costume protecting me!

My dreams tend to be like dog dreams. I'm usually so tired that I hardly dream at all. In a way, I do think that the zone one performs in - without getting too ooga-booga about it - it's like that moment when you wake up in the morning and you're emerging from a dream state but you're not quite up. Where are you? Can you hear the birds? Or is that the traffic? It's that zone in which I perform. It’s like one foot in reality and one foot in a dream state. I spend most of my life in that state!

Things present themselves to you, and it's how you choose to deal with them that reveals who you are. We all say a lot of things, don't we, about who we are and how we think. But in the end it's your actions, how you respond to circumstance that reveals your character.

At the moment there are 1 in 8 people who have no access to clear drinking water, about a billion people worldwide, which can make you feel quite overwhelmed.