I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with an audience where you immediately hear their reaction, or feel them, whether they're with you.

My parents were political, so it's definitely in my bones. Wherever I am, I always seem to get involved with politics. I think, once it's in your bloodstream, it's always there. I love it.

I think politics can no longer be assigned to parliamentary activity and it probably never could be. But politics with a small p and the history of trade union movement really interests me.

He makes me laugh, Mick! He tended to turn up when we were having lunch and entertain us all. He bought an Enigma machine! I've never worked with a producer who was more famous than everyone put together.

I had a happier experience of the city as an actress than I had had as a model.

What am I doing in this silly showbiz life? I do wonder that sometimes.

It's always a help when you have worked with someone as you've got to know them a bit already.

Location work has its charms, and can seem glamorous on the outside, but I think living at home and having the stability of a home life once you've finished work is very underrated!

I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with an audience where you immediately hear their reaction, or feel them, whether they're with you.

Once you get into your stride, the camera becomes like another person in the room. It's like being in a very small theatre where there is no getting away with anything because the audience is centimetres away from you.

For a woman to say she has had a dalliance with another woman is quite trendy these days. I do not like trendiness. Life isn't about dalliances - it's about individuals. You come across people in your life that you find very interesting. It's not about something flighty.

Having spent a number of my younger years with trade-union parents attending NUT annual conferences, I feel comfortable with an agenda in my hand and a procedural format for debate.

I grew up in a strongly socialist family. While I was at school, I worked in party politics and with organizations like the Anti-Nazi League. Everywhere I saw it, I fought prejudice.

I have seen the Gore documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth,' just released in the States, and admired the acutely revolutionary delivery of the slideshow assisted talk he has now been giving for some 16 years.

I like being in love, but loving is what is crucial to me. Loving is the reason to live.

I play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from 'The Guitar' on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad.

I was picked up on a London street by a model agent. She took me to her office and then sent me to Paris to work in shows. It was supposed to be two weeks, but I ended up living there with my Zimbabwean boyfriend. I made enough money modeling and acting in French movies to buy a nice flat.

I'll always take Scrabble and chess if I'm going filming. But I do have the Scrabble dictionary, which can be infuriating for other players.

I'm not very good with stills. I get all twitchy.

I've always been a strong feminist and felt that the image of models was detrimental to women. That whole thing really bothered me. I would think about quitting about once a week.

If I was going to make a broad generalisation, I'd say that I prefer the company of women. People know now that I live with Mike Figgis, but I prefer not to talk about it. On one level, privacy is important, but on another level I have no desire to deny certain things.

In orthodox film-making, you never shoot sequentially - but with improv, obviously every move you make has a knock-on effect; it is a cumulative process. I have improvised, on the non-scripted 'Timecode.' It can become entirely indulgent: actors smashing crockery and competing verbally.

It helps being from somewhere other than Hollywood, not having grown up with that sense of film-making. I really wasn't exposed to that as a young woman.

When I was a child I wanted to be a petrol pump attendant. I suppose you have all sorts of thoughts as a child and at the time I figured that it was a way to avoid doing anything like going on stage.

When I was little it was a great time for film-making, with stuff like Mike Nichols' 'Silkwood.' The films you see in that pre-secondary-school stage stay with you in a very particular way.

When your life is as precious as all our lives are, then it needs to be kept precious and looked after and treated well. And that is not something we should be sharing with a wider audience.

You can't ignore the system and the power you acquire as an actor if you're in films that are successful.

My whole life, I've wanted things before I was ready. I was always pushing for the next job, the next success. I was so focused on achieving and the path that I was missing some great point about life.

I've always gone to see all kinds of shows and stole what I could, as we all do. We see an artist and hear a song and think, 'I bet I could sing that song. I'll put that in my show.'

If you feel alienated from people around you, it's because no one tries to understand you.

I believe I have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. Am I either one? Absolutely not. Ladies and gentlemen, I am an American.

One piece of advice that always stuck in my mind is that people should be respected and trusted as people, not because of their position or title.

I lived in London for eight years and I like to say that I am two parts American and one part British because I lived there for a third of my life.

My mother-in-law had a pain beneath her left breast. Turned out to be a trick knee.

Let individuals create real wealth, empower them, create something that they can leave for their children.

Now I am weary and I can no longer tell good from Evil and I need someone to show me the way.

My mistake in my relationships has been to feel that I can do it all on my own: 'I don't need a man.' That is definitely a mistake. Women generally want to feel loved and appreciated. It's something that I am working on every day, trust me! It's a challenge for me to do that.

Besides, a bald cap would have never looked real.

The first two years I was on 'MADtv' were really, really fun. We always thought it was 'Saturday Night Live's very nice, slightly asthmatic, shorter cousin.

The liberation of Iraq, which is already hard to justify from the perspective of American interests, at least had the virtue of freeing Iraqis from a brutal dictator. Despite all the anarchy and violence, life has gotten better for most Iraqis.

I don't know about Heaven or Hell, but I do know that we are visited all the time by the spirits of those who affected us in life.

TV has taken reflection out of the human condition. People didn't use to have a ready answer for everything, whether they knew something about it or not. People think they have to have an answer for everything because the guys on TV have an answer for everything.

That I have the right to express myself freely at all times in all circumstances entails the idea that free speech is a 'basic human right' possessed by each individual, and, as such, trumps the interests of the society or group, including my neighbour.

In the early days, I had very little idea about arrangements, and I wrote songs a little flat, as it were, just on an acoustic guitar. They didn't really have quite enough nuance.

Rawness and refinement are not opposite ends of a luxurious spectrum... they are two complementary features with which to populate a luxe environment.

By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.

I like performing. I like partnering with an audience.

A man who can putt is a match for anyone.

A perfectly fitted sheath dress that can take you from day to night is something that every woman should have in her closet. You can't go wrong with black, but a little bit of color is nice. I love a lot of color, personally. You can accessorize a sheath dress. Look at how Michelle Obama accessorizes clothes to make them her own.