Helen McCrory

People who are exceptionally intelligent are often lonely because there are few people as intelligent as them. I have two little children, and everyone says: 'I hope they're doing well in school. I hope they're bright.' And I think: 'Why would anyone want their children to be the brightest?' Academia is a lonely world.

So often when you meet child actors, they're weird - they're freaks. No, I mean it, they're really odd people.

Childhood has definitely been invented, hasn't it? I think that's because people had children later, and we appreciate and cherish childhood a lot more.

To be honest, my husband and my children are my best friends.

In the area we live, there's a large show of children who run from one house to another house to another house. That's lovely because it means all the children play together, and all the adults get to sit around and have coffees and read the papers or go to the park.

Appallingly, I hadn't thought about it one jot. I never daydreamed as a little girl of getting married and having children. I was as surprised to discover I was getting married as I was to discover I was up the duff.

I think change is good because it teaches you that it's nothing to be frightened of.

My own parents were very un-neurotic, so I never thought that I had to change enormously in order to become a parent.

I spent my teenage years in Paris when my dad was stationed there, and I'd look at women in their forties and think, 'That's the age I want to be.'

Every time, at any point of my life, I think now is always the best age to be.

You can be moved by a performance on set, but when you see it on screen, it does nothing. Yet there will be someone you simply didn't notice on set that on screen: bam!

I listen to Radio 4 all the time. I didn't go to university, so that's my further education.