I spent a lot of time with a real detective, a lady detective inspector who was the only female detective inspector in the whole of East London. She and I hung out a lot. She showed me what she did and I spent time with her. So, [she was] a lot of the inspiration for the way I dressed and sometimes the dialogue in those interview scenes where we're cross examining and questioning the youths and trying to get a confession out of them.

I never felt I was quite the ticket academically. I always felt I had to put in an enormous amount of effort not to be disappointing. So I worked really hard, but at the time it suited me, because I didn't do very much else.

You do the one film that you think is terrible, but it's a big studio film and you hope you'll get another job because of it, because blah blah blah, whatever it is. You know that you hate it, you just couldn't care less if it got made because it's not something in a million years you'd go and see yourself. And it ends up being shite and you just knew it was shite to begin with, and it doesn't do you any favors at all if someone thought you were in another shite film. So I decided it doesn't get me anywhere being cynical. It's not that I want to be.

I have to say that, though it sounds so superficial, the accent really does help. I like having accents preparing for a part.

My take on people and on the characters I play in Transsiberian, the role you're looking for, is that everybody is more than one thing. We're many things, all of us, and there are times when we are capable of great levity and jolliness and then there are times when the opposite is true.

I think Georges Feydeau said comedy is just tragedy speeded up.

I am a good mother and I feel proud about it.