If a script is good, you are 10 steps into the part just reading it. But my choices are not all down to my taste. It is about people you have worked with before.

I love my job and I know I am very lucky but still, if you audition and you don't get it, it still affects you.

I don't like the bullying, do-one-over style of comedy. It's so cheap.

I always assumed I'd be a terribly patient mum but it turns out I'm not!

I always assumed I would leave drama school and do 'Lady Macbeth' and all sorts of serious things. It just didn't happen.

You see thousands of films you forget the minute you come out of the cinema, don't you? Because they don't mean anything. It's the tough ones like 'Breaking the Waves' and 'Nil By Mouth' that stay with you, that you never forget. I'd like to leave a few of those behind if possible.

This may sound mad, but you sort of assume that no one's going to watch what you do. You go on set, have a lovely time, and then you forget anyone's going to see it. So it's always a bit of a shock to be recognized. I get terribly embarrassed.