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.

I suffered from 'No one will ever fancy me!' syndrome, well into my teens. Even now I do not consider myself to be some kind of great, sexy beauty. Absolutely not.

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 simply couldn’t conceive of how devastating it would be not to be able to hear my children’s voices. Not to be able to communicate with them, to hear them learn, grow, and express themselves verbally. How fortunate, how blessed I am. This overwhelmed me. I can talk to my children, I can respond to their needs and comfort them when they tell me they are unwell. I can tell them stories and hear them tell theirs.

I had to grow the hair down there. But because of years of waxing, as all of us girls know, it doesn't come back quite the way it used to. They even made me a merkin - a wig - because they were so concerned that I might not be able to grow enough.

As a child, I never heard one woman say to me, "I love my body". Not my mother, my elder sister, my best friend. No one woman has ever said, "I am so proud of my body." So I make sure to say it to Mia , because a positive physical outlook has to start at an early age.

Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go.