From about the age of 5, I was aware that I didn't fit. I was the black, atheist kid in the all-white, Catholic school run by nuns. I was an anomaly.

I use the film industry as a pleasure for work and that kind of thing and it's not a pursuit to make me feel happy in my life.

I feel like the sexy clothes put a bar between you. It's like putting an alcohol drenched piece of wood between you and the person, and it's inviting them to be able to think and say the things that they hate about themselves.

Then I became a mother and it just fills every space, that isn't filled with something else important. It's just like this incredible balloon that blows up and fills life up.

I see a wiser person than when I was younger: having babies, and passing 30, were the turning points. What women in their 40s - I am 39 - lack in gorgeousness, they make up for in wisdom. I love ageing, despite the drawbacks - thinner, drier skin.

Very often, if you think about what's erotic and break it down, as we're feeling the excitement of eroticism, we're feeling fear. We want to try to dominate our fear and get rid of our fear, so we go towards it and have sex with it, basically. That's really sad.

I can hardly find the words to describe the peace I felt when I was acting. My dysfunctional self could actually plug in to another self, not my own, and it felt so good.