•  “I’m not the kind of actress that goes home with the character. I mean, you’re thinking about the work or the next day’s scenes, but not staying in character. But as a film goes on, you become more and more fragile, emotionally. And physically too, actually.”

• “I really hope my sons don’t want to act, “I know what it was like being the daughter of a great actress and they’ll grow up being the sons of a great actor.”

• “That was very difficult. I had a growing awareness of it, which I voiced to my mother when I was about 11. I’m not sure why I was so upset by it – I suppose because it wasn’t the norm and that made me feel isolated.”

• “There’s no guide book on how to deal with grief, but with time it eventually heals. I took a lot from him. He was incredibly strong and opinionated, and he opened all sorts of windows for me. I learned from him that when you’re in professional difficulties you should go on failing but fail better.”

• “I was pretty clear about things – I decided to leave St Paul’s at 16 so I could do my A-levels in a year and get to drama school early. I thought it was better to start at 17 than at 18 or 19.”

• “I could be my own person. I was appreciated for who I was and I felt a great sense of freedom. In Britain, whatever the review, the headline was always about coming from my family.”

• “My family was pretty chaotic but I’ve always been into organisation,” she says. “There’s such chaos in my head that I need a superficial order around me. I used to want everything to be perfect but I don’t feel the need of it any more. I find it easier to relax.”

• “I was never obese but I was overweight, and I was always aware that as an actress you had to be slim. I was told as much by my father but I used to just sit around watching television and eating my way through packets of chocolate biscuits. The one good thing that came of it was that I watched a lot of films. At 17 I weighed 11-and-a-half stone and I didn’t lose it until I was 22. I loved food, I was very greedy and a lot of comfort-eating went on.”

• “I was often nervous because I knew I was getting more attention than I should because of my family, and I sometimes thought I was no good. But I never thought I was doing the wrong thing.”

• “I know the pressures of being the daughter of a great actress. But it’s inspiring. You learn so much that other people don’t get to learn until later on. My father being a director, I learnt a real work ethic.”

• “I knew that for this movie to work it had to be very hot and very real, and it wasn’t going to be a case of doing it Hollywood all covered with a nice little sheet.”

• “I felt for a woman who’s in this very suffocating, stuffy class-ridden society who has no outlet for her intelligence, her creativity, her sexuality.”

• “I’ve come across a couple of girls like that… Those spoilt, airhead socialites who think they have a job but don’t know the meaning of real work.”

• “A film is a director’s vision… there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have.”

•  “As I grew up in that world and saw how much it affected her world and how much it affected our childhood, it made me very aware of politics. Of course, I have my own private feelings and thoughts, but I don’t care to share them.”

• “I’ve played comedy before but not that much. I mostly do get drawn to darker material.”

• “If I was absolutely set on something, I don’t think he would shake me. But I don’t think it would occur to that degree, as we’re on the same page.”

•  “I’ve worked with Bob Hoskins three times. We all talk the same language in a way. We just had a laugh and tried to keep things light.”

• “It’s so difficult to get a film financed and I’m not a huge name. I’m not Nicole Kidman. The chances of this coming my way were very slim.”

• “My father would get on his tennis court every day and hit balls, come rain or shine, even when he was practically hobbled because his feet were so swollen and so covered in Kaposi’s.”

• “The degree that these scenes went to… there was a couple of days I was upset… I’d have to hurry back to the girls in the makeup trailer and have a bit of a cry because it messes with your head.”

• This profession is very tough and not many people make it, and even if you do, then you can still get slapped in the face constantly.”

• “Some actors have chemistry toghether, some actors don’t. Whether you’re married, friends or hate each other’s guts, when you work with a really good actor that you feel entirely safe with, you can take extraordinary risks that you can’t with an actor who you don’t feel safe with.”

• “Describing an incident that occurred to her at age four, when she was to appear in a scene in the movie, THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE: “On the day we filmed the scene, a bee stung me. I screamed and cried so much they called a doctor, and my father said, “It can’t hurt that badly!” But it wasn’t the pain that upset me, it was the thought that I mightn’t be in the film. Already the little professional.”

• “I knew that for this movie to work it had to be very hot and very real, and it wasn`t going to be a case of doing it Hollywood all covered with a nice little sheet.”

• “My mother raised me and there was some painful and difficult times, because she was pursuing a career and also very actively involved in expressing her political views. But, looking back, I wouldn’t switch her for a normal mom, even though there were moments when I’d come back from school and wish she’d just be there in a gingham dress putting dinner on the table. I never had that. But now I’m really glad I have her.”

• “I hope they don’t become actors. Because I know how it is to be the daughter of a great actress, how very hard it is to make your own way, to be compared to someone of such great talent and beauty. To feel, When am I ever going to make it on my own and be judged on my own merit?”

• “My parents were the least patriotic people in the world…it’s an alien notion to me in my background.”

• “I could write you a book on why not to get involved with an actor. Because anybody who is good at what they do gets totally obsessed by it to the exclusion of other people. Because, oh God, there are so many reasons I never, never wanted to be involved with an actor. Ever. Of course, that was before I met MY actor.”

• “What’s in the movie compared to what we shot is the tip of the iceberg.”

• “The degree that these scenes went to… there was a couple of days I was upset… I`d have to hurry back to the girls in the makeup trailer and have a bit of a cry because it messes with your head.”

• “If I was absolutely set on something, I don`t think he would shake me. But I don`t think it would occur to that degree, as we`re on the same page.”

• “I’m not the kind of actress that goes home with the character. I mean, you`re thinking about the work or the next day`s scenes, but not staying in character. But as a film goes on, you become more and more fragile, emotionally. And physically too, actuall.”

• “I felt a bit intimidated being in a supporting role in her film,I felt more like the maid than the diva.”

• “I wake up every morning feeling lucky which is driven by fear, no doubt, since I know it could all go away.”

• “If I get to do Asylum, I’ll have done a part that explores my particular territory – my arena. It’s to do with women exploring passion and torment and darkness.”

• “I used to be much more ambitious. I don’t feel ambitious at all now in terms of using work as a stepping stone to somewhere else, but I do feel an enormous thirst to do work that I care about. I don’t think I’ve ever played a part on film that has given me the opportunity to do what I’ve been able to do on stage.”

• “I know now that it doesn’t work like that. You have incredibly happy times and you have very difficult times, and you work through it. If you were with someone else, you would have the same set of problems or a different set.”

• “I thought it was perfectly normal and OK for people to be married for a few years and then to break up if it wasn’t working out.”