Painters hate having to explain what their work is about. They always say, 'It's whatever you want it to be' - because I think that's their intention, to connect with each person's subconscious, and not to try and dictate.

I've been working every year since I started acting, and I got many awards before I won the Oscar for 'The Queen.'

It seems to me that the years between eighteen and twenty-eight are the hardest, psychologically .

I couldn't handle the rules the Queen has to live by at all, and very few of us could. It's a golden cage, really. You're never alone in that role - you are always surrounded by security.

Like journalists. The police have an extremely sick sense of humor, very guarded, very private, very male, which they need to survive on an everyday level. I don't think anyone has ever managed to tap that on the screen - it would actually be too shocking.

Parkinson's is a slow but inevitable process. It's hard living with it on a daily basis. The difficulty facing people with it is that they never quite know 'Can I or can't I do this today?'

Women are always self-effacing and self-denying. There's a term that enrages me, and I always used to swear that I'd never play characters described that way. The term is "long-suffering."