“Back in Rome I did some acting lessons and I realised I loved it more than anything else I had ever done before.”

“I do have ambition - I can dress up for a premiere, get in a limousine, but it's not my life. My life is wearing jeans and tennis shoes and travelling on the metro. I have to do that because otherwise my acting is going to be false.”

“I don't go back home to Sardinia as much as I would like, just for Christmas and family events.”

“I have a dream of re-creating the fantastic family I grew up in with my brother and my parents. I am lucky that I have such a good image of family life - my father and mother are still in love, still happy.”

“I love all the shoe shops in Covent Garden. Laura Lee Jewellery on Monmouth Street for delicate gold jewellery. Every time I get a part in an English movie, I buy myself a piece of jewellery from there.”

“I never download anything; it's crazy! We must keep buying albums and DVDs.”

“It was in England that I discovered theatre. I didn't have any money, but I would just eat yoghurt in order to get some money for tickets.”

“Modelling was not very satisfying for me. I came to London to model, and I fell in love with the theatre. I was eating yoghurt every day so that I had the money to go to the theatre. I saw everything. It's still my dream to be on stage in London.”

“My favourite animal is the koala, but his life would be boring. I would rather be a giraffe so that I could contemplate the beauty of Africa.”

“My parents wanted me to be a doctor, and they weren't very happy at the idea of me choosing acting as a career. Everyone in my family went to university - my older brother is a lawyer - but when they saw me for the first time at the theatre, they thought, 'OK.' They like it very much now.”