I couldn't watch Tom and Jerry. The cruelty was too much. I had all these strange images, of tiny animals, all mixed up.

I felt my mother about the place. I don't think she haunts me, but I wouldn't put it past her.

I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive.

I was always someone who lived in the future all the time, it was always the next thing - dreams of escape.

I never wanted to become an actress because I'd read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did.

I never had any acting heroes. I never really went to the theatre.

I keep seeing myself in my daughter, and I see my mother in me and in her. Bloody hell.

I don't want to give up acting - it's what I am.

I don't like being out of the crowd. It's lonely within a group.

I was asked about doing a nude shoot for men's magazine GQ. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.

I didn't come into the business to get awards or titles.

I'm more selective now I've got a family. I don't want to work all the time. My daughter's 12; I don't want to miss out on her life. Soon she'll be a teenager; she won't want me around.

I can understand why people get annoyed at being remembered for one thing, but a lot of actors aren't remembered for anything. I don't mind that.

I always loved my mother, felt loved, but she was judgmental. Her father in Ireland didn't approve of women generally, and she took on his values. She believed her own mother was foolish.

Being a mother adds another emotional dimension, a feel for children that I didn't have before I had one. They were a pain before.