Working with Bernardo Bertolucci, director of Stealing Beauty was my first experience of being able to communicate with someone whom I'd think of as a mentor, who'd ask me my opinion and trust me, and believe in me and allow me to do the things that I wanted to do. The film itself was also rare in terms of character most of the scripts I've read are the story of some man, and there might be a love interest or a big woman's part.

It's terrifying. It's so scary, because you get used to being around the crew and being friendly with everyone and then suddenly, at a certain point, everything switches and you're the one standing behind the lights and nobody's going to help you. And that can be really difficult sometimes.

I got my first part in Silent Fall, 1994 - I guess I was 15 or 16 - which was really outrageous because I still knew nothing. I don't think I really learned how to land on my marks until after Empire Records in 1995, 'cause sometimes I'll see a shot in that film, and I'm like "Whoa, I just walked over to the corner."

I think it's healthy for couples to be away from each other for short periods.

The realities of getting up in the morning with two children and being covered in spit-up and totally filthy make me excited to imagine clothes that aren't made for baby puke. Dressing nicely is a dream now.

I definitely think the girls look too skinny now. I'm friends with models Helena Christensen and Linda Evangelista, and I remember Linda telling me that when she was a model in the nineties, a sample size was a 6 or an 8. Now a sample dress size is a 0 or a 2. That's pretty alarming. There's a lot of pressure on the models. It's not healthy. I can't even imagine what that's like.

There is no definition of beauty, but when you can see someone's spirit coming through, something unexplainable, that's beautiful to me.