“Ultimately, you just have one life. You never know unless you try. And you never get anywhere unless you ask.”

I do think it’s important for young women to know that magazine covers are retouched. People don’t really look like that.

I look like people that walk down the street. I don’t have perfect boobs, I don’t have zero cellulite – of course I don’t – and I’m curvy. If that is something that makes women feel empowered in any way, that’s great.

I don’t have parts of my body that I hate or would like to trade for somebody else’s or wish I could surgically adjust into some fantasy version of what they are.

I am insecure. If you ask me, everybody is.

I still don’t believe this craziness for being skinny, but I eat sensibly and I don’t stuff down chocolate biscuits.

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.

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

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.

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.

Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength.

And tomorrow’s a brand new day.

Grind together and shine together.

He probably thinkin’ I’m in pain, but I’m really on game.

We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up.

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.

I tell myself that God gave my children many gifts – spirit, beauty, intelligence, the capacity to make friends and to inspire respect. There was only one gift he held back – length of life.