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.

I love it when a character requires me to look less than my red-carpet best.

She has a choice. She can either accept a life of misery or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle...she fails in the end but there's something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion.

I'm really happy in my own skin. There's a lot of judgment that can come from outside sometimes, and there's media scrutiny that is placed on a lot of women in the public eye, and I just couldn't care less. I really couldn't care less. 'I would sometimes say in my twenties, 'oh, I couldn't care less', but I think I probably did. Now I genuinely don't and that's a lovely, liberating thing to experience.

I finally moved out of my parent's house. It was only fair to let my sister have her own room.

I have a crumble baby belly, boobs are worse for wear after two kids...I'm doing all right. I'm 33. I don't look in the mirror and go, "Oh, I look fantastic!". Of course I don't. Nobody is perfect. I just don't believe in perfection. But I do believe in saying, "This is who I am and look at me not being perfect!". I'm proud of that.

There wasn't very much time between wrapping Revolutionary Road and starting The Reader. It was about five and a half months, which, for me, isn't that long. Some actors are very good at just going from one thing to another but I've always been a bit useless at that. The preparation time is important for me.