I think one wants lots of different lives.

As a child, I wanted to marry a farmer, but no doubt the reality would have been very different to the idyll in my head.

Spreadable butter is wonderful for cake-making: it's much easier to cream than the block type and slightly lighter because it's blended with oil.

I try to be classic without being mumsy.

Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there's another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you're dressing up and deciding to be somebody.

My parents were not theatrical at all.

Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.