KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS

I was happy, I wasn't beaten, and I lacked nothing. But it wasn't what people expect - it was very much sort of pinching and scraping. I don't know how my mother did it.

My body is a baby machine.

I can't get into all that physical stuff of having to have flawless skin... Sometimes you see people and it looks like someone's got an eraser and made their face a little blurry - their traits seem to go out of focus.

I mean, if you're being directed very precisely by somebody who has admiration and who's really smart, it's great. If you're being told what to do by a nincompoop - and luckily that hasn't happened very often - it can be very frustrating.

I never go straight to the point if I can go the most difficult way. Why be simple when you can be complicated?

I used to be so intensely preoccupied by unhappiness... now there are times where you might get down, but you can move on much faster now.

We all come in different shapes and sizes, and that's fine by me.

At school, I always wanted to belong to a gang, and no one would have me. So I'd have make my own gang, but with everybody else's leftovers.

I was very lost as a teenager. Which is a horrible way to feel.

Often, the roles I'm offered in England are melancholic women who are filled with regret for the past, regret for their fading beauty.

I've realised that I am who I am and that is it. Like it or lump it. I'm not around to please anyone any more, and it's a huge relief.

I know people think that I always play these characters who are in control and can chop someone's head off with a look.

I have never met a woman who works who doesn't feel guilty. I mean we all deny it like crazy but deep down there is always that voice saying you should be at home.

I just get so fed up with seeing the same things written about me. If I see the words 'ice queen' attached to me, I feel like banging my head against the wall. There's this perception that I can only be in a film if I have a glass of champagne in my hand and a stately home in the background.

I just don't see very many films. Because I make them.

It's very hard having a career in different continents and two different languages.

When I speak English, I've been told, I have this patrician way of speaking that's very irritating. It's the whole class thing.

Most films seem to be about a man and a women falling in love at some point and once you pass forty-five, it's almost disgusting to fall in love.

Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.

As an adult, it's a huge shock to be orphaned; as a child it's just hideous, ghastly.

There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.

I find it difficult to explain, but I'm quite ashamed of being an actress.

I love shooting French films because I don't have to stick with being sophisticated or stuck-up.

People are always saying, English, English, English rose, and I just feel so completely different.

You have to think about whether that Mercedes-Benz you have is actually worth how much it costs to you.