It's funny when someone says to you 'you're hot' and all that, because I don't think of it in that way.

After Titanic it would have been completely foolish for me to go and try and top that. I'm an English girl, I've always loved England, I've never felt the desire to leave it for any particular reason. And whilst I'm ambitious and care very much about what I do, I'm not competitive. I also don't want to act every day of my life. () So it was important to me after Titanic to just remind myself of why it was that I was acting in the first place, which is of course because I love it.

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.

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?'

I think what you feel like as a teenager never really goes away. If you were teased for being fat or thin or having bad teeth, you're always insecure about that particular area of yourself. So I've never thought of myself as any kind of beauty, iconic or otherwise.

Ultimately, you just have one life. You never know unless you try. And you never get anywhere unless you ask.

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