I just want a quiet life. I think that's what everybody says when they get older.

At the beginning of my acting career, I worked for two seasons at the RSC and spent a lot of time in the Cotswolds exploring Shakespeare's countryside. It's my kind of English landscape, with its tiny villages and one-room thatched pubs.

I've never felt the need to be defined by a man.

With age comes a greater wisdom, an ease and comfort with oneself.

I'm lucky to have very good genes. My mother was so tiny she was almost bird-like, and my father was tall and lean. Both lived until their early 80s.

I'm pretty good at getting things out of the way, especially paperwork. I hate it sitting about, as it somehow weighs me down.

I have had big relationships. Three times in my life I have felt a special connection, but people talk about looking for love as if it's just like walking into a Starbucks and buying a coffee when you feel like it. It's rare, that special connection.