I'm writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that's what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.

I keep seeing myself in my daughter, and I see my mother in me and in her. Bloody hell.

I'll tell you how it happened. The phone rang. Paul, my agent, goes, 'Would you like to play Meryl Streep's?' I said, 'Yeeees! I'll do it, whatever it is.' He said, 'It's Mamma Mia!.' I said, 'Oh no, which character? The fat friend?

I felt my mother about the place. I don't think she haunts me, but I wouldn't put it past her.

Suddenly, you are very much in the present, and you learn it's really the place where you should always live.

I was the little, funny one. I felt I was the child among grown women.

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.