Successful films are very dangerous things.

I just get so fed up with seeing the same things written about me. If I see the words 'ice queen' attached to me, I feel like banging my head against the wall. There's this perception that I can only be in a film if I have a glass of champagne in my hand and a stately home in the background.

I really like acting in French. It's actually quite different for me, from acting in English. It's fun acting in a foreign language. You're liberated or freed from preconceptions.

At school, I always wanted to belong to a gang, and no one would have me. So I'd have make my own gang, but with everybody else's leftovers.

'The English Patient' was a huge turning point in my career and my life; it became this huge thing. But the whole Oscar build-up got completely out of control; I spent more time talking about that film than I spent making it!

I am so bored with seeing stories about a mature man of 65 falling in love with a beautiful girl of 32.

I was happy, I wasnt beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasnt what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I dont know how my mother did it.