Youre supposed to be the leading lady in your own life, for Gods sake!

For my own children, I do want for them to look back and remember that it was me in the kitchen, that I was doing the packed lunches, that we were there on the school run, that we did take a bus. I want them to remember those things, because those are the things that I remember from my own childhood and that have been incredibly important to me.

Just coming to terms with the fact that I got to play April Wheeler [Revolutionary Road] and Hanna Schmitz [The Reader] in one year, let alone in my lifetime. I'm very, very aware of how rare that is as an opportunity for any one person. I can't tell you how much I've been able to take away from these experiences creatively. I really, really learned so much about acting, about myself... all of those things. It's difficult to talk about the actor's process without sounding like an arrogant asshole but they really were very challenging.

I don't know how much I can be bothered to have to lose the baby weight. It's such a pain... I'm not one of those people for whom it magically drops off.

Playing Juliet in Heavenly Creatures changed my life, and the role of Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind opened many new doors creatively.

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.

I love the routine. I love getting up in the morning and getting breakfast and packing lunches and doing the school run. Those things are really important to me. Because I think that those small but key moments are crucial for a kid.