I think you've got to take the risks. There's no point playing it safe, because either you'll get bored or the audiences will get bored. Sometimes, you're going to make mistakes, and that's fine, but you have to take the risks. I think Pirates is one of the prime examples of that with Johnny Depp's performance, and part of the reason that people love it so much is that you watch it and go, "Gutsy, really gutsy!"

My mum says that I was born 45, and I do remember at six thinking that I should be earning my own living.

It's a tricky one when you're playing somebody who is mad. There's often the big actor's question, if you're playing a part like that: do you take it to be an internalized thing, pull the audience in, or do you go full-out, and kind of present it as quite a shocking thing?

Well, the thing about great fictional characters from literature, and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies, is that they completely speak to what makes people human.

I wasn't allowed to do commercials. I wasn't allowed to do TV series. I wasn't allowed to do soaps or basically anything that would mean I missed too much school.

I don't want to deny my femininity. But would I want to be a stay-at-home mother? No. On the other hand, you should be allowed to do that, as should men, without being sneered at.

I tried college for three months but I was desperately unhappy. I just wanted to perform. I was getting straight As but I had no friends and cried every day.