“There are moments to indulge and enjoy, but I always know when it’s time to go home and wash my knickers.”

I was the kid who never won the races. I never jumped the highest. I wasn’t on the list of the high-achieving.

I accept my body. I accept how I am and make the best of what I am given.

Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me.

I’m often moved by the circumstances around some of my characters, but I don’t think I’ve actually cried watching myself.

Of course I believe in marriage. Commitment to one other person in life is glorious.

Regret isn’t good. Every decision one makes in life is made for a reason or another. Whenever something bad happens, I go, ‘This is happening for a reason’, or, ‘This is going to teach me something’.

I feel very strongly that curves are natural, womanly and real. I shall continue to hope that women are able to believe in themselves for who they are inside, and not feel under such incredible pressure to be unnaturally thin.

If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail.

I wanted to play incredibly challenging, multifaceted characters. Because we are all a puzzle.

I have just wanted to be an actress. That’s always been my goal. I didn’t want to be famous.

I struggle for what I believe in. Life is short, it’s impossible to repeat something; you have to take advantage of things when you can reach them.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, or what you do in your life, you never stop needing your mom.

If you’re not still learning and growing as an actor, then you have no backbone and no career.

She has a choice. She can either accept a life of misery or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle…she fails in the end but there’s something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion.

I have no regrets. If you regret things, you’re sort of stepping backwards. I’m a believer in going forwards.

Acting is about being real, being honest.

I enjoy playing a quintessential antihero. There’s something therapeutic about playing such characters. I know it sounds corny but I feel like I learn about myself when I play that characters.

When I think about it, I do start to worry about this whole social media thing. It does make me uncomfortable; kids should be out, living their lives, getting out and enjoying themselves.

Leave bands, go back to obscurity if I choose to, without a great sense of loss of security because it’s all been based on the fact that I did it on my own or was doing, enjoying doing it on my own in the first place.

I am flattered that they think that many people would enjoy my work. I don’t approach any genre a different way than I may approach another one. I treat every role I do like a role worthy of applying whatever kind of tactic, process and talent I have.

I got good grades in school, but I’m not sure if I’m smart or if it just means I can study. I’ve never taken one of those IQ tests, and I don’t want to. It’s so pointless. As long as you enjoy life and have fun and you’re healthy and happy, that’s what matters.

I suppose I will try to enjoy my life now while I have it. Who knows what’s going to happen in the future?

Anyone who watches golf on television would enjoy watching the grass grow on the greens.

Overall I enjoy a certain anonymity. I live a very normal, very ordinary life.