Sometimes, I think I could have been a major movie star with the vast mansion and staff. I look at my Volvo and think it could be a limousine. I think of the roles I turned down. But then I wouldn't have had any children.

The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.

If you make a film about a pig farmer in Wales and you are a huge hit as the pig farmer's wife, the next thing is you'll be asked to do a film about a sheep farmer in Scotland.

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress.

There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.

I just don't see very many films. Because I make them.

The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.