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.

I was a wayward child, very passionate and very determined. If I made up my mind to do something, there was no stopping me.

es, I spend a lot of time in Reading because we live in Oxfordshire and so we're always just in and out of each other's houses. It's very much the family that it always has been. But there's no comparison with Hollywood as such.

Because of the person I am I won't be knocked down — ever. They can say I'm fat, I'm thin, I'm whatever, and I'll never stop. I just won't. I've got too much to do. I've too much to be happy about.

The audience's reactions are more important: if people believe in the love story, it's because they love how we've acted. That's the most beautiful award. It's very important for me, people appreciating what I do.

People say to me, 'You seem to have made this conscious decision to do independent films'. In reality, I haven't. After each movie, I always think, 'how different can I possibly be? Is this going to challenge me, is this going to inspire me, and is this going to make me love my job more than I already do?'