I think that most actors don't have very good opinions of themselves

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

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 don't need the painful memories, because either you've resolved them. Denying always makes them want to come back. Denial is a mechanism that doesn't work. But allowing them to come back in little by little, those memories, you can begin to be quite comfortable with them, and it's even nice to have that as part of the map of your life.

I think you have to earn beauty. You can use it or abuse it however you want when you`re young. It`s a God-given gift. You have a visiting card - you can go into any room and someone will come and talk to you. But I`ve always thought from very early on that you have to be careful with that - not being vain or narcissistic. Have fun, but don`t be obsessed with it.

You give, actually, what you have in your inner world through your emotion and feeling. That's what you can give; it's not so much about "acting" in a sense of playing something that's very different to you.