I was happy, I wasn't beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasn't what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I don't know how my mother did it.

I'm not at all fed up with British films, but I am fed up with playing upper-class people.

Movies make you immortal and ageless.

There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress.

People are always saying, English, English, English rose, and I just feel so completely different.

I was happy, I wasn't beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasn't what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I don't know how my mother did it.

Buy, buy, buy, buy! They want to grab you and trap you and turn you into little Elizabeth Hurleys.

If you're feeling insecure and you need to feel special, the best place to go is somewhere foreign where people treat you as special because you're different.

Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.

At school, I always wanted to belong to a gang, and no one would have me. So I'd have make my own gang, but with everybody else's leftovers.

I find it very difficult to be two different characters at the same time - actress and mother.

People accuse me of being Methody, but I'm not at all. The one thing I don't want people to see is me. I don't want them to be able to recognize my faults and failures and qualities, and I won't use those things to spark off emotions or to illustrate.

I never go straight to the point if I can go the most difficult way. Why be simple when you can be complicated?

Having a leading man who is actually prettier than you are is quite upsetting.

After a long time with someone, you realise you've been thinking for two.

As a younger actor you want to be approved of, you want to gain respect, be admired. All of those things. To say: 'This is me playing this character. And aren't I fantastic!' I don't feel that so much now.

As an adult, it's a huge shock to be orphaned; as a child it's just hideous, ghastly.

Baths are my favorite thing. I can have two, three a day.

Boarding school is a wicked thing.

Everyone loves to hate a spin doctor.

French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries.

I am so bored with seeing stories about a mature man of 65 falling in love with a beautiful girl of 32.

I am sure that, had I grown up with both parents, had I grown up in a safe environment, had I grown up with a feeling of safety rather than danger, I would not be the way I am.

I can't get into all that physical stuff of having to have flawless skin... Sometimes you see people and it looks like someone's got an eraser and made their face a little blurry - their traits seem to go out of focus.

I can't move back to England. My home is in France now. I'd love to but I can't. My family's all there now.

I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.

I do consider myself as being French, I suppose.

I do not want to pour out my heart to the world. I am cautious of what I say and to whom.

I don't want to have to be pretty. I don't want to have to be adorable.

I have a feeling I will work for a long, long time. I like it a lot... and I don't know. I just have a feeling that I'm going to be one of those people who go on for ever.

I have never met a woman who works who doesn't feel guilty. I mean we all deny it like crazy but deep down there is always that voice saying you should be at home.

I just get so fed up with seeing the same things written about me. If I see the words 'ice queen' attached to me, I feel like banging my head against the wall. There's this perception that I can only be in a film if I have a glass of champagne in my hand and a stately home in the background.

I know I can be bolshy and really unpleasant, and it always happens if I lose confidence in the people I'm working with. If I've got no confidence in what I'm doing and they don't provide me with some assurance that we're doing the right thing then I bully people. I'm a horrible bully.

I know people think that I always play these characters who are in control and can chop someone's head off with a look.

I like the idea that I'm making things that people might think and argue about.

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating.

I mean, my father was killed when I was six. And I only have tiny, tiny flashes of memory.

I never raise my voice!

I really like acting in French. It's actually quite different for me, from acting in English. It's fun acting in a foreign language. You're liberated or freed from preconceptions.

I still absolutely love 'The Sound of Music' and anything with Julie Andrews in it.

I tend to do things that I'm very frightened of. That's what I do.

I think in most jobs, you get better as you get older. You gain experience, you gain knowledge.

I think people do work too much. I've never been able to understand the whole 'make hay while the sun shines' thing. Either I want to work or I don't want to work.

I try to make films that I find exciting. It makes me want to get out of bed at five in the morning, have my make-up done and play for the rest of the day.

I was terrible at school.

I was very lost as a teenager. Which is a horrible way to feel.

I wouldn't want you to see me all the time on the screen, because I get bored of it myself!