Tell him I mind having to look pretty, that's what I mind, because it is so much more of an effort.

It’s about time a 55-year-old British woman is the heroine of an action movie. I may have to write it.

Sometimes I get to put on posh frocks and be Madam Glamour, the vendor of my wares. My lovely friend Kath, a stylist, puts me into things I'd never dream of. But my real life is very different. It's very, very home-based - an intense domestic life, that's the core of everything.

I think people say you shouldn't work with children or animals, but you must only work with children.

My worst quality is impatience.

Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening.

I think my first bout of that was when I was doing me and My Girl, funnily enough. I really didn't change my clothes or answer the phone, but went into the theatre every night and was cheerful and sang the Lambeth Walk. She said: “The only thing I could do was write. I used to crawl from the bedroom to the computer and just sit and write, and then I was alright, because I was not present. “Sense and Sensibility really saved me from going under, I think, in a very nasty way.