Anna Friel

“Onstage, there's no hiding; you either can or can't act. There's no second take.”

“I've been onstage once for one performance with four days' rehearsal.”

“As long as she is talented enough and passionate about doing it herself then I will be happy and support her. I think I will be sensible - my parents said I could only do it if I got my education and so I had something to fall back on.”

“Being a mother gives you an incredible feeling of empowerment, you think if I can go through such pain and that level of sleep and still operate and not be grumpy you can do anything. It can be quite scary, you can't function your brain, forget your vocabulary.”

“We will spend more time in America, we're going to get a place in LA as hotels aren't great for the baby.”

“I play a character every day of my life, and I don't want to play a character as myself. They can judge me as an actress, not as a person. I'm not a spokeswoman for Anna.”

“You can see when an actor gets bored: Their eyes go dead. I promised myself I'd never let that happen. If it does, I'll go and live on a desert island for a year.”

“I have the most lovely, healthy bouncing baby, she was all very compact and the right size.”

“People became more interested in my love life than in me, and that has a certain effect. You start to feel very empty and worth nothing, you start to become a piece in a board game you never wanted to play.”

“Now learning a bit more about footballers I think what they need to do well, is someone who really wants to stay in the background and just be a strong support.”

“I want more children but for the next three years I want to act.”

“For me personally, everything is on a kiss.”

“I've never been onstage in my life.”

“The doctors say it dates back to a film where I had these huge prosthetic breasts because my character was breast-feeding. The weight of them, and of the baby, did my back in.”

“And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.”

“I look at being an actress as being like a mummy: You're bandaged up and preserved as soon as you start making other people money.”

“Well it's hard to bracket it like that because everyone always thinks you either go to America and you come back, fail or succeed, but it doesn't work like that.”

“David is 13 years my senior and has much more experience.”

“It's really important to draw the line on what we do as actors.”

“For Closer, we've had five weeks. You go into every single word because it's very, very concentrated dialogue.”