I knew it was going to be important that if I had an audience understand who she was, then all those things had to come from a place that was grounded, as opposed to being tics and manners and twitches. I didn't think it was going to be as rich, perhaps, as if I was going to make it more emotional.

With The Reader, I'd just be shattered at the end of every day really. I wouldn't really want to talk. We kept saying, because we were in Berlin: "If we get back at a decent hour, let's go and have a glass of wine." We'd always think it would be a great idea, but then get to the end of the day and then go [acts drowsy and blabs]. It was very difficult for everybody.

I accept my body. I accept how I am and make the best of what I am given.

I'm a normal human being. I don't have any desire to change my body as a result of having had two kids. That's a good thing, isn't it?

But I really can't and I actually don't like switching off because I worry that I might lose my thread, or something. I fall asleep and I hope to God that I'm going to dream about it, because then I don't have to put it down.

Every woman has a mother, and every woman will have an issue with that mother and things that mother did or didn't do. It just depends on how you choose to process the lessons that you learned from your own mother.

Just because society, and government, and whatever was different 100 years ago, doesn't mean that people didn't have sex, pick their nose, or swear.