Having children is life-changing, to state the obvious. It's a gigantic shift in your life and I welcomed it.

When it comes to emotions, we all feel pain in the same way, everyone, whether you're from Istanbul or Beijing.

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've been fortunate not to have been pigeonholed by virtue of being mixed-race, of being English and black, and by virtue of working all over the world. I've enjoyed a great degree of variety in the work that I've done. It's been quite unique.

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.

If we're all living in ourselves and mistaking it for life, then we're devaluing and desensitizing life.