On playing the fussy suburban mother in Bend It Like Beckham (2002): My only passport to cool. When I went to look at schools for my daughter, I'd walk into a classroom and it was, 'Ohmigod.' Then I realise what impact the film had. Great film. I loved it.

On going to Los Angeles to read for True Lies (1994): I spent a sweaty day trying to get ready for it. I got myself dolled up, got a little rented car. I was driving round some freeway, trying to find this studio lot, and I suddenly thought, 'What am I doing? I don't like this material. I don't like these kinds of films, I actively disapprove of them. It was racist. It was violent. I didn't like anything it stood for, I'm not gonna get it anyway.' So I turned the car round, went home, rang up and said, 'I'm not going.' People find it pretentious. I don't think it's pretentious. I don't want to do stuff I don't value.

On Truly Madly Deeply (1990) written especially for her by Anthony Minghella: I don't really like watching that glamorised version of grief - a single tear rolls down a perfect cheek. My experience of loss is that you feel trashed. Loss is not a glamorous thing.

On growing up as the daughter of an army officer: When I'd arrive in a new country, I didn't have any friends for a while. I was quite self-sufficient. I don't know what the connection is with acting, but I can set up home very fast.

On raising two children: I do compartmentalise, because I have to. I've spent the morning organising our days - food arrangements, childcare and stuff - and I'm normally doing that all the way into the theatre.

On playing Stephanie, an ex-violinist with Multiple Sclerosis in "Duet for One" in London: I go out on stage and it feels as if there isn't a single part of me that isn't used up doing what I do. I mean, head, heart, soul, fingers, sexuality, everything is employed. It isn't every day you can do plays like this.

I'm quite scatty.

It is intensely frustrating. The longer you live, the more interesting life gets, and yet many of the parts involve carrying trays and putting lamb chops down in front of the leading man.

I wouldn't even begin to presume that the talent of an able actor is anything like the talents of a prodigious musician. But I know what it's like to be pretty obsessed. I do understand that onstage there are times when you think, 'I could not be more alive than I am at this moment. I can't do most things in life. This is what I'm for.'

On reading Auden aloud at school: I felt, 'I want to be the person through whom these words pass out to other people.'

On playing Cleopatra at RADA: I was this skinny pale inexperienced more-or-less schoolgirl, and it must have been quite tough for this director to get a Cleopatra out of me. Which is what he said in no uncertain terms in front of all my classmates. He just tore me to shreds. And I remember thinking, 'I've got two or three options. I probably can just run out the building, go off the university and be a lawyer. Or burst into tears and get drunk and take a month to recover.'And then suddenly I filled with rage that anybody would humiliate me like that. The only way of expressing that rage was through the language. I could feel this power coming up from somewhere I didn't know existed and coming out through everything, fingertips and brain and mouth and suddenly it was working and I remember thinking, 'Great, this is it, it's like flying!' And at the end he said, 'Thank you very much, that's more like it.'

I'm hardly Hollywood material - they're interested in youth and perfection and I lay no claims to either. It's not a place that's particularly interested in talent.