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

I think that the Bible as a system of moral guidance in the 21st century is insufficient, to put it mildly. I feel quite strongly that we need a new moral lodestone if we can't rely on what is inside our own selves. Which I think, actually, is pretty reliable.

Constantly worrying about your reflection and criticizing your body, shape and size is an act of violence against yourself.

Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.

I think that my work is my attempt, I suppose, is to try and become a piece of connective tissue. I'm trying to communicate with people here and in America - in rich countries - about what I see on the ground in badly affected areas

I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch.

We have to reinvest, I think, in the idea of articulacy as a form of personal human freedom and power.