ANNE-MARIE DUFF

I'm always dancing in my kitchen. And I love to sing. I've always sung. My father was a lovely singer. Always sang Jim Reeves at parties.

We thought we were going to have a girl, so we had 15 girls' names lined up and a little boy popped out. We had no idea, and we had hardly any boys' names.

I'm someone who laughs a lot and cries a lot.

I'm not a great beauty. That's not me.

It's a privilege to do what I do for a living - to take people out of their miserable day, or to educate somebody, or make somebody laugh, or fall in love with an idea. How good is that? And I get paid to do it!

That's the thing - you do a job like 'Shameless,' and suddenly that's why you can get a job like 'The Virgin Queen', not because of all the classical theatre you've done. But we can be very snippy about television. It's absolutely the most potent and powerful form of storytelling we have.

There are some roles you just don't say 'no' to. Those compass points: you get them so rarely as an actress.

I admire people who overcome obstacles or who have to commit - I've always really admired commitment, whether it be a commitment to living or a commitment to love. People who commit to a moment. People who are not somewhere else, but in the room with you.

Oh, I must be ambitious, mustn't I? I'm sure I always have been. I think you can only get away with pretending you're not for so long. After that, it becomes ridiculous.

I think American drama is at its best when it takes the domestic and makes it epic, like a Greek tragedy in the front room.

Any kind of conflict draws me to a role.

When I started drama school, theatre was the main draw. I never had any movie star notions. Not that there were family ties to the theatre, either.

There are people out there with three jobs and small children. Being an actor is a walk in the park compared to working as a cleaner overnight. I'm lucky I'm not plucking chickens.

I think creative people need to do a bit of, you know, tuning into every radio station - you just do, otherwise you don't know much about other people. You kind of have to learn a bit about yourself so you can work out how we all behave and why we do the things we do.

In theatre, there's the director, the writer, and below them the actor. In film, it's the actors who are most important. That goes against the grain for me.

Healthy love, I always think, is... wanting the person you love to be more of themselves. And I think for a parent that's a challenge, because you have to let a baby spread its wings.

You want to have enough of a profile to be able to do all the work you can, but at the same time you want to have your own space. But there are a lot of actors who achieve it, a lot of movie stars even, people like Emily Watson and Cate Blanchett. They seem to be able to carry on with their lives and still produce wonderful, high-profile work.

I don't look like Catherine Zeta-Jones, so I don't think Hollywood would be that interested in me, to be honest. I just want nice work.

I'm a right pain in the hole for my agent. I won't take certain parts if I think they're offensive or banal. For instance, I won't do a film if I think it's full of violence for violence's sake, or a television drama if I don't think it's intelligent writing.

I didn't really know anything about Margot Fonteyn. I'd never really been a ballet child, so I had no idea what an incredibly huge icon she was, not just in terms of a creative icon - she was also a style icon. I had no idea she was up there with Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis in terms of that kind of image.

The life of an actor is very random. It can be exhilarating but terrifying - you do wonder day to day where the next job will come from. Some of my friends are very talented people, but you see them out of work - which can be tough. If you wanted that kind of security, though, I guess you wouldn't be an actor in the first place.

When my baby was born, I felt like somebody had spiked my drink, and I suddenly was so full of love that it was a little bit as if I was drugged. I didn't think that anyone could feel that way.

I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style.

I was very lucky in that my parents were very broad-minded. Because they had come from another country and hadn't been able to fulfill their dreams, they wanted me to be more of myself, if you know what I mean.

It's never enjoyable watching yourself. Because you're never as good looking as you hope you are. You're not expecting to be Penelope Cruz... but I'm a female of the species. I have my hang-ups and all of that.