I'm not a republican any more. Not so voraciously anyway - I'm not in favour of the concept of monarchy, but I do see the good in it if there's a good person in the role.

Writers can get very angry when an actor says, "I don't know, I don't feel very comfortable with this line." Sometimes though, you're working with a writer for whom that is simply not apt - like Harold Pinter.

Where you grew up becomes a big part of who you are for the rest of your life. You can't run away from that. Well, sometimes the running away from it is what makes you who you are.

I've not won different awards - many, many times - so luckily I've practiced that whenever you are nominated for anything, you enter into this marvelous, fantabulous bubble called the bubble of nomination. The minute the envelope is opened and your name isn't called out, the bubble bursts. And no one calls you up the next day to say, 'So sorry you didn't win,' or 'You looked gorgeous - nothing. If you win, you get about another 24 hours in that lovely bubble and then - pop - you are slightly wet all over from the bubble and realize that you have to get on with real life.

I'd describe myself as a Christian who doesn't believe in God.

I was part of the first generation of girls and women to be educated and go to grammar school even if we didn't have much money. Then that generation went, 'OK, great', and went into medicine or the police, and hit this wall of discrimination from older men who hadn't caught up.

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.