Training is fabulous because it gives you a basis, a strong structure, so that when you're unbelievably nervous and you think that you can't get a word out, you will get the word out.

When I moved to Paris in the '70s, there wasn't very much going on in film in England. So when I started doing French films, there was a natural movement toward the kind of films I wanted to do. It wasn't the reason I came, but it so happened that I stepped into a time and place that actually corresponded to what I wanted. That sometimes happens in life. And it was rather beautiful.

I know I have great inner strength; I always have. I can blank things out, cut people out, and I know that I can go and live in a cave on my own if necessary.

I've always been monogamous - [within it] I've been in love with people, but very platonically. For me, monogamous love is about learning how to be able to trust someone completely; so you need to be able to think you can trust them. But that doesn't mean you can't have extraordinary feelings for other people and not feel guilty about them, but not necessarily go and wreck marriages and consummate, and you don't have to do all that.

You can't fool an audience with lots of bits and pieces. You have to lead them somewhere.

I know a lot about fear in itself, and lived with fear a lot. Lived with anxiety a lot, lived with the things that - most human beings, at some stage in their lives, are going to live with these feelings.

I am not qualified to be a Dame. To be Dame you have to represent England in a way that I don't.