You don't choose a film because it's made by a woman, you choose it because it's good.

We older women in Europe are lucky not to be shoved away in a drawer.

It's very hard having a career in different continents and two different languages.

I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating.

'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!

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.

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.