The way I relax is I think, 'I haven't got anything coming up.' I like to know there are months ahead when I've got nothing.

I don't like being out of the crowd. It's lonely within a group.

Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.

Being a mother adds another emotional dimension, a feel for children that I didn't have before I had one. They were a pain before.

I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

It's getting better generally, daily, especially in TV, for women in acting and age and looks count less. As more women come into the business. Change of any sort takes a long time to happen.

Everyone comes up to me saying, 'Cooee, Julie! Hello!' as if I know them. Of course I don't bloody know them. Am I flummoxed by it? Sometimes. I think, 'Ooh, love, go easy.' For a time, I did feel this pressure that I had to be funny, but it passes.