“Actors think they're far more important than they are, and that can only lead to hurt. People with colossal self-importance have very far to fall.”

“After playing Saffy in 'Ab Fab', I needed to take time out from acting to see if I really wanted to do it. I had been doing it for a very long time and I was being sent the same sort of scripts again and again.”

“Being a mum is something that's never bothered me too much. I have never felt a strong need to have children, but I am not averse to it either.”

“Cuba is such a beautiful country, and everywhere you go, there's music and people dancing - especially in Havana.”

“Ever since I can remember feeling love for my parents, I've been frightened of losing them.”

“I am always baffled by age, but to be honest with you, I feel like I am about 34. I feel better now and I am certainly healthier than I was in my early 30s. I am more rounded, too.”

“I am extremely content in my life - sometimes to the point where I really should find something to moan about!”

“I do believe in an afterlife. I try to be at one with people and try to love life as much as I can.”

“I don't get inoculations or take anti-malaria tablets when I go abroad; I take the homeopathic alternative, called 'nosodes', and I'm the only one who never goes down with anything.”

“I just love doing costume dramas; I am very lucky, as I see myself as a part-time time traveller.”

“I love a bit of glamour - who doesn't? - but I probably wouldn't be able to pull it off.”

“I love finding things. I love digging around in the dirt. It's part of my Virgo. It's like acting, really. You're always searching around for something and finding little hidden treasures.”

“I love to travel with my family or my two best friends because I completely trust them. I forced my two best friends into learning to scuba dive with me in Sri Lanka - it was amazing but also hideous because we were learning in very difficult seas.”

“I want to be in 'The Hobbit.' I love fantasy and mythical adventure films. I believe in fairies and angels. I believe in nature's spirit, that there are other realms, other planets, life forms.”

“I'd hate to be a sex symbol. Because you're always having to live up to an image. I haven't got time to sit around doing my nails.”

“I'm into the law of attraction and quantum physics. Like cosmic ordering. It's all about thinking lovely things that you would like in life, and feeling good about them before they manifest, so that by the time they do, you don't want them because you're on to your next desire.”

“I'm on a constant path of self-discovery and change. I'm trying to become a better person, a nicer person. I love therapy - it's brilliant.”

“I'm single, and I think that by the time I met someone - if I were ever to meet the right person, which I don't think I will, because I am too fussy - my biological clock means that it will be too late.”

“I'm terrible at solving things. I'm really bad and haven't got any sort of lateral thinking capacity. I am your perfect audience for a mystery. I love that kind of stuff. I'm always on the edge of my seat.”

“It distresses me when I take my seven-year-old nephew out. I cook healthy food, and he wants to go to McDonald's. He doesn't even like the food; he just wants the toys, the Happy Meals. I can't stand to see people walking down the street eating fast food.”

“It's a tremendous feeling walking on to a set with a live audience and making them laugh, but I love drama, and I love drama where there's the ability to bring comedy into it because in a lot of tragic circumstances in life there is comedy to be had.”

“It's very hard to dramatise something factual and not make it look overdone, but also not to make it look so under-dramatised that it's dull.”

“I've got a string of disastrous relationships behind me. I don't think I'm an easy person to live with.”

“My dad's so likeable, you wouldn't feel in competition with him. If any boyfriends have ever felt that, they're long gone.”

“There is nothing more special than a love of a child, and I love the fact I am an auntie.”

“What keeps me awake at night? Just about everything! I worry that I am not there for my family enough. So what keeps me awake at night is general guilt!”