I do think that despite my best efforts to resist it, I am now a grown-up. It's due to lots of very difficult decisions that you make over a long period of time - about motherhood, wifehood, and work, and all the things that one has to make decisions about.

Once you're a mom, you've been split into two people. It's like Peter Pan and his shadow.

The insanity of consumption bothers me. Talk about the opiate of the masses. It ain't religion anymore. It's stuff.

The thing that influenced me most in relation to 'Nanny McPhee' were the Westerns I watched with my father. All the Spaghetti Westerns; all the Virginians; all the High Chaparrals. Because if you think about the form, it's a stranger from out of town.

The best way [to survive] the red carpet is by wearing Ugg boots. But unfortunately, I have not yet managed to persuade the people who style me at these times to let me do that.

I understand what it's like to come with your family, and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say, 'She's got her daughter; she's got her husband.' Yeah, but she hasn't got anyone else.

I've a problem with the word charity because I think that NGOs, as I prefer calling them, really do take the work of moral and social responsibilities that ought to be taken on by governments.