I think I was quite lucky in that I went to an all-girls school. I was never put in an environment where I had to be the other - the woman as opposed to the man - all the way through my education. I was never made to feel that way at home.

Postwar Europe was morally stagnant, and there was a lot of neo-conservatism.

Your desire to please... actors are people pleasers and if somebody says your vocal choice in this was ridiculous or whatever you will come back and do it differently. So, to avoid getting into a situation where you're altering your performance way down the line you have to just not do it at all. It's hard and I have done it in the past to disastrous consequences!

If you are an actress in L.A., on your 40th birthday they should just hand you the keys to the lunatic asylum.

A passion for any novel, and any character, can crystallise your ideas when you really need to be as open as possible as a performer.

I have a very strong, probably slightly aggressive personality, and so that just ends up coming out regardless of what I try to do.

My alter egos have changed a lot over the years. When I was a child, I was a black horse called Storm. Whinnying and jumping over bamboo poles in the garden took up pretty much my entire childhood.