We all have loads of information. What an actor does is bring it to the surface. I jump without a net because that's how I am. The information comes out because I am brave enough to allow it. I'm not brave as a human being in everyday life. I'm brave when I'm acting.

A film based on a jolly good John Grisham book is fine, but I like to get a bit under the skin

Close girlfriends I don't have necessarily, as an actress. Perhaps there is a thing of competition there, you know, when you're doing the same things, and you're the same age. I could be with younger actors, but woman of my age probably - there is and there isn't, one doesn't like to think of it, but I think there is a sense of competition. Which is good, also.

I felt very special in Paris, more special than I felt in London. I love London for different reasons. I've always been close to London, being English. But somehow there's something special about living as an Englishwoman in Paris.

By trying to control everything we become very neurotic, more and more desperate. It's a huge tragic thing.

What beauty brings is huge. It brings great privilege, great power and potential to do many things. If you are beautiful, doors open for you; people smile at you; you are accepted in places where others aren't. So the relationship that people have with beauty, in a sense, is almost deforming.

I am fascinated by the whole process of what it's like to be alive, whether it's unbelievably uncomfortable and horrible or whether it's quite nice