I'm very wary of trust, you see.

If you are a successful actor, which is what I am, then you tend to get labelled very quickly and easily.

I still absolutely love 'The Sound of Music' and anything with Julie Andrews in it.

I mean, my father was killed when I was six. And I only have tiny, tiny flashes of memory.

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 like the idea that I'm making things that people might think and argue about.

'The English Patient' was a huge turning point in my career and my life; it became this huge thing. But the whole Oscar build-up got completely out of control; I spent more time talking about that film than I spent making it!

Having a career is a bit like navigating an Atlantic crossing - you have to make sure everything is keeping and is balanced.

The problem with being a film actress or a movie star is that people see you so huge that somehow you're visually massive or somehow you're in some removed space, which is a television or wherever. It somehow takes your humanity.

I can't move back to England. My home is in France now. I'd love to but I can't. My family's all there now.

It doesn't make you feel very good being mean and fierce; it is much nicer playing people who are kind and sweet.

I try to make films that I find exciting. It makes me want to get out of bed at five in the morning, have my make-up done and play for the rest of the day.

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 do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.

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 really like acting in French. It's actually quite different for me, from acting in English. It's fun acting in a foreign language. You're liberated or freed from preconceptions.

The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.

I'm not one of those famous people flying round the world emoting over every catastrophe. I'm too feeble.

Films are just consumables.

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

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

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

We older women in Europe are lucky not to be shoved away in a drawer.

With the theatre, your whole day is geared towards the evening's show, and that's the job. People usually go to work about 9 and come home around 5, or maybe 7.

I think in most jobs, you get better as you get older. You gain experience, you gain knowledge.

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

My life is European.

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

I'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms.

I know I can be bolshy and really unpleasant, and it always happens if I lose confidence in the people I'm working with. If I've got no confidence in what I'm doing and they don't provide me with some assurance that we're doing the right thing then I bully people. I'm a horrible bully.

I'm not used to being asked what I want to talk about. That's why I'm an actress. Get told what to do, stand on the mark, say your words, wear this, look this way, look that way.

Successful films are very dangerous things.

Movies make you immortal and ageless.

Buy, buy, buy, buy! They want to grab you and trap you and turn you into little Elizabeth Hurleys.

Exoticism can give you an edge: it makes people assume you're cleverer than you are and gives you the upper hand.

I do consider myself as being French, I suppose.

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

After a long time with someone, you realise you've been thinking for two.

I wouldn't want you to see me all the time on the screen, because I get bored of it myself!

I am so bored with seeing stories about a mature man of 65 falling in love with a beautiful girl of 32.

In fact, in many ways my mother was quite hippy-dippy, serving macrobiotic food and reading 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.'

Everyone loves to hate a spin doctor.

French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries.

I'm very good at forgetting people.

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.

Having a leading man who is actually prettier than you are is quite upsetting.

Boarding school is a wicked thing.

I never raise my voice!

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

I don't want to have to be pretty. I don't want to have to be adorable.