I'm not much of a Method actress, so even though my character in The Ghost Writer was quite dark and bad-tempered, I could only do that if I was seeming quite perky.

When the Hollywood thing happened, I thought at some point I'd get to the front of the queue: 'Yes, hello, I'd like to play that role.' But you don't. You just join a different queue.

My parents have always been cool. They even became surrogates to friends of mine who didn't have such supportive parents.

The best Christmas present I got from my husband was a week to do whatever I wanted.

Family holidays and weekends are really brightly colored memories, full of my mother and father, rather than our nannies and au pairs.

My parents' long and happy marriage was a great ideal to live up to, but a tough one.

There's this absurd situation on a movie set where your trailer's here and the set is here and the lunch tent is here, and you're not allowed to get yourself from these three places.

I wanted to play a TV detective because it's a rite of passage; I wanted to experience every area of acting. I haven't done comedy or as much Shakespeare as I had intended.

I have many debates now with friends on the changes, and the continuing confusion over bringing up your children, instilling values, letting them make the right choices.

I couldn't get any of the ingenue roles when younger because at 5 feet 9 inches with a deep voice I was always too... genue. My career has completely happened since I was 29.

I thought "I've coped with some crazy situations, and I can do this." But working with Roman Polanski is so different from the fashionable and accepted way of directing now.

One of the greatest tools you cannot do without is the media. These various means for mass communication and those involved in them must be your partners and not your enemies

I've always loved movies dealing with the terror of a woman who doesn't really know her husband and finds out that he's a monster. It's one of my favorite plots.

I get out on my bike almost every day. If I can't walk somewhere, I'll bike or skateboard.

When you start thinking about leaving, choose your moment carefully. Go out while you’re still on top, not when you’re no longer in control of events.

What does not contain love must contain an illusion.

I must look past my capabilities and see God's possibilities

We avoid the gravest difficulties when, giving up the attempt to frame hypotheses concerning the constitution of matter, we pursue statistical inquiries as a branch of rational mechanics.

No person is so grand or wise or perfect as to be the master of another person. Teacher, perhaps. Setter of good example, perhaps. Genius, perhaps. But master, no.

My most recent purchase was a black lace corset.

Science fiction really is the only genre that lets you use your imagination without limitations.