I am constantly struggling to show people that there is more to me than my appearance. You do have to try and overcome those hurdles. Female actresses need to be given the chance to be more than how they look.

At the time, 1980, people regarded actresses involved with production with a certain amount of fear, resentment and anger.

I love watching amazing actors and actresses that you can't take your eyes off of because everything they are doing - even if it is just twiddling their thumbs or scratching their eye - it's just interesting.

Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

I love films that make me react emotionally and physically when you walk out of the cinema. Two of my favorite films however have got to be 'The Tree Of Life' and 'The Piano Teacher ' which also stars one of my favourite actresses Isabelle Huppert.

When I got out of acting school I was lucky to have gotten any job at all. A lot of people hiring African American actresses - it was right after 'Roots ' and for society not me it was great. Nice richly dark-skinned people was the fashion and I was not.

Even actresses that you really admire like Reese Witherspoon you think 'Another romantic comedy?' You see her in something like 'Walk the Line' and think 'God you're so great!' And then you think 'Why is she doing these stupid romantic comedies?' But of course it's for money and status.

In England with all due respect we have some of the plainest actresses in the entire world as our greatest.

There's always an imbalance with actors and actresses in the industry. And I think because there are just fewer movies overall being made it's that trickle down effect.

Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens.

For as long as I've been acting I have been very lucky to be paired with really great actresses playing my mom.

And they didn't have to get into a lot of legal speak or talk ER terms they were real people. I think that's why so many actresses were attracted to it. And it was just about problems that you could identify with so much right off the bat.

It's a wonderful profession and it opens lots of doors and I think it's quite right that people can accuse actors and actresses of being dilettante but you learn on every job whatever it is the process moves you on in some way and yeah I want to expand my knowledge of our existence I suppose.

But things move in circles: one minute it's the models who are famous then it's the actresses then it's the designers.

It's very difficult today for girls to become supermodels. There is a lot more competition a lot of countries in the East have opened up so there are many more models than there were in the Nineties. Now they have to compete with famous actresses but also with say reality stars to be on the magazine covers.

You know I had my mother and my father convincing me that he would be going back to Hollywood and he'd be back with the actresses and dating them and that he wasn't serious about me at all. So I had him saying one thing to me and my parents telling me something else.

You have to be the best of whatever you are but successful cool actresses come in all shapes and sizes.

My style icons would be people like Brigitte Bardot and old Hollywood actresses who always look so stunning cool and chic. I like classic and timeless looks.

A supermodel needed to be able to be on 'Sports Illustrated ' to be able to walk runways to be able to do beauty ads to be on covers. And the girls now can no longer be on covers and be in the ads because your actresses have taken over all the jobs. I don't know what happened but we want our jobs back.

At the time 1980 people regarded actresses involved with production with a certain amount of fear resentment and anger.

I know plenty of actresses in their early thirties who look amazing although there's that old saying: 'Ladies get older men get more distinguished.'

I think that we're in a really amazing time where there are really a lot of really fantastic female actresses and comedians. I imagine there's just a lot of opportunity for women to have powerful roles. Or it's just that there's more women writing TV. Women tend to maybe write strong women.

I definitely look up to Meryl Streep because she's been in so many amazing movies and I just think that she's one of the greatest actresses out there. I also look up to Jennifer Lawrence especially knowing her and knowing that she is so awesome and so nice.

I love watching amazing actors and actresses that you can't take your eyes off of because everything they are doing - even if it is just twiddling their thumbs or scratching their eye - it's just interesting.