I think still it is very fine not to want children. There are far too many people in the world. It is my contribution to ecology.

As you get older naked stuff [on film] gets easier. It's more to do with the role than what men in the audience think. There's a liberation about it.

I don't think there's anything on this planet that more trumpets life that the sunflower. For me that's because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun but because it follows the sun. During the course of the day, the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. And that's such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life.

A war film can be propaganda and they're very valuable as propaganda, as we realized in Britain in the Second World War. Film as propaganda is a very valuable tool. It can also demonize, which is the dangerous side of a war film as propaganda. But there are war films that are not propaganda. It's just saying 'This is what it's like.' For 99 percent of us we don't know what it's like. We have no idea. So to reveal that to the audience is powerful.

Working away from my husband for long periods is good and bad. It stops us taking each other for granted and gives us space, but I miss him terribly.

I don't know who I am. But I do know who I'm not. I have occasionally tried playing people I'm definitely not, and that wasn't a very pleasant experience.

I feel the written word, poetry and literature is just one of the most beautiful things that human beings do. So we have to fight for it.