Now it comes to this stage of my career when I get to play the wicked witch all the time. You know you start off with Cinderella and then you end up playing the stepmothers.

I watched 'Lagerfeld Confidential,' which was such an insight into the daily life of a maverick designer.

As long as you're chasing something, that keeps you alive, right?

Because I don't live there anymore, I've fallen in love with London again.

I never discuss my troubles in a relationship. It's best to just keep those thoughts to yourself.

My parents have a brilliant ear for languages and mimicry and accents, which I think I've inherited - that I can listen to things and pick them up.

I never read the good press and never read the bad press. If you believe the good press you're finished. If you believe the bad press, you won't be able to continue.

I was always quite mature as a child and as I get older I'm regressing.

It's a collective experience when you're making TV. You think of all the people who work hard to make this extraordinary and you just hope that it works well.

I've been very lucky with having a run of working with very special people and it just makes you work harder.

The actor's job is to put themselves in the shoes of the character they are trying to portray as truthfully as possible.

I want to interact creatively with the directors I work with - it's a thrilling way to work.

I really want to work with Mike Leigh.

The main thing I've done for my children is not to give them a stupid name, like actors do.

My mother was a woman of the '50s who had a family in the '70s while finding her political and feminist voice. She could make marvellous three-course meals after teaching all day but hated it. Because of that legacy, it took me a long time to realise the delights of the family table.

I ate ostrich. I'm not very proud of it. I was going through a very experimental period and probably during foot and mouth. It was exquisite, but I felt very guilty.

I was a waitress at a really rundown Italian restaurant in Dublin, for about a week, at 16. I thought it was going to be romantic - overhearing affairs and watching first-time couples all loved up. But instead I was just running about constantly.

I'd never scan the starters and main courses on a menu in a restaurant as a child. I'd want a dessert for starter, for main course and for dessert.

A lot of actresses say they are 24 when they are 34 but I find that ridiculous. I wish we didn't succumb to the youth-is-all ideology in this industry, because there is a huge audience out there who want to relate to characters of their own age played by actors of their own age.

Ballykissangel' made me a household name, and I am enormously grateful for that, but I don't feel it would ever have developed me into a better actress had I stayed.

I am all for high art but I owe it to myself to be clever about it and do commercial things too.

I've made a lot of mistakes in my career but the biggest mistake I've made is to turn down work.

Who hasn't had an argument with their mother-in-law?

I'm only 5ft 2in so a significant increase in weight is really going to be noticed.