A film is not a documentary. And what's wonderful about film is that it's a real provocation for people. I never, ever see film as being an absolute version of the truth.

Art civilizes us and it connects us and activates us. And so it's really important to connect with compassion, with stories about people who are different from us.

If you think about Audrey Hepburn, I think she became more beautiful when she stopped being an actress and started working with humanitarian campaigns. The more engaged you can become the more you can shed your self-consciousness.

Well, I've never looked upon myself as being a beauty, per se.

I like to put perfume on my pulse points, but I also love the way you can sense it - there is an atmosphere that comes from releasing a scent in to the world - it's a primal thing. I spray around me, not just on me, and it lingers in the room after I leave.

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!

When I see daughters with their fathers I wonder what that would be like, although not in a way that immobilises me.