Childhood has definitely been invented, hasn't it? I think that's because people had children later, and we appreciate and cherish childhood a lot more.
You don't learn from good people - they've found what works for them and are completely original; you learn from the people who are bad. You think: 'Oh dear, I'm not going to do that.'
You can be moved by a performance on set, but when you see it on screen, it does nothing. Yet there will be someone you simply didn't notice on set that on screen: bam!
Literature is reflecting what is happening in life. More and more women are having relationships with younger men. It's partly that women are not losing their figures now.
What interests me about life most is people, and the why of the world. That's what theatre looks at: it examines life, and gives it a cohesiveness that life doesn't have.
There are a lot of little lessons that can be taught around the home without sitting a child down and boring them to death with your philosophy of life!
The only time I ever spend alone is when I am working or when my husband is away filming. I put the kids to bed and have an hour and a half in the evening for myself.
When I was 14, I told my mother I intended to be in the House of Commons in the morning, in court in the afternoon and on stage in the evening. She realised then a fantasist had been born.
I love dressing up. But I'm very low-maintenance; the week before an event, I'll choose something as quickly as possible and that's that. If I can do my own hair and make-up, even better. I like it to be fun.
I had a great start in television; the first thing I did was an episode of 'Performance' called 'The Entertainer' with Michael Gambon playing Archie Rice.
I love theatre because it's just me and the audience. It's the litmus test in acting, to be able to sustain a performance over one, two or three hours.
Appallingly, I hadn't thought about it one jot. I never daydreamed as a little girl of getting married and having children. I was as surprised to discover I was getting married as I was to discover I was up the duff.
