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 would never accept a role that wasn't going to stretch me or challenge me in some way. I'd say Holy Smoke! probably did that more than anything I'd ever done. It took me to places I didn't actually know I could go to, and that's what I want my career to be all about.

I'm often moved by the circumstances around some of my characters, but I don't think I've actually cried watching myself.

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.

When you're telling a story, I think you should tell it to its fullest, with reckless abandon, and absolutely let it be what it is.

I've never worked with prosthetics before in that sort of capacity. I did a bit of prosthetic work when I had to give birth in Jude, which is quite a different set of prosthetics. But I had so much admiration for the hair and make-up department and the prosthetics team, who are actually based at Shepperton, and who put together that look for Hanna. I

I believe it is important to go on insisting that normality is not what we are exposed to. Honestly, among my acquaintances there is no woman wearing XS. No, sorry, there is one: my daughter. The point is that Mia is 11 years old. It's true that you need much time to get rid of the fat girl you once were, but you know I am sincerely grateful for my buttocks.