Joely Richardson

When I very first started out, I had that arrogance of youth.

And whatever my weight, I've always been skinny from the waist up.

I'd love to adopt, but having a daughter, Daisy, who's in the middle of her teens, I'm now thinking: Is this a time to start all over again or is this a time to realise those child-rearing years are over?

To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.

The highest pay cheque my mother ever received funded the building of a nursery school in Shepherd's Bush - the school cost well over three times the money she donated to the making of the film 'The Palestinian.' Unsurprisingly this always goes unmentioned in the press.

My mother, for the last 20 years anyway, would not call herself a Marxist but a human rights activist.

The early part of my career I really struggled, getting turned down again and again. I was in debt, and it was horrible. And then my family hit such highs in their careers, I asked myself what I was thinking going into the same profession.

So finally, I can feel a sort of pride in all my family - Mum, Lynn, Corin, Tasha, my cousin Gemma - because, I think how wonderful that this troop of gypsies can carry on telling stories.

I think work really is a life saver, because it carries you forward, which is good.

You grow up by making mistakes. I've made a ton of them, but as long as I keep on failing better, I don't mind.

There's still a bit of a problem, in that so many leading English roles are taken by American or French actresses.

Everyone knows in the industry that when these great roles come up, every two years, there's a huge number of people up for them. I'm not one of those top five females that can personally finance any film.

I care so much less, now, about going up the ladder; if I cared about the ladder I would be doing it all very wrong.

OK, I wasn't as successful as, say, Julia Roberts, but I'd spent years in a very respectable career, some big American films but a host of other smaller, really exciting, maybe experimental films, being paid rubbish but working with fine people, that was what I thought I was known for.

I live quite an unsettled life.

So often people say something and you realise you haven't really heard it.

It's very difficult when there are pictures taken on the red carpet. I find those things so terrifying that another persona just kicks in. I don't recognise myself.

Seize the day. Well, I aspire to that anyway.