Dervla Kirwan

“When I look at a magazine and I see Kate Winslet, I will buy it because Kate lends it a sense of achievement: she is brilliant, sexy, a mother.”

“There's a difference between loneliness and solitude. You pursue solitude, I think. But loneliness is a completely different isolating thing.”

“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.”

“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.”

“My favourite designers are Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel and Givenchy, but I wish I had loads of money to spend on them.”

“The very nature of acting is one minute you're up and the next you're down; one minute you're in favour and the next you're forgotten. You go away and you come back again.”

“I think I've got some actor's form of ADHD. I just can't do the same thing day in, day out.”

“I used to be nervous about not working and so would work for the sake of it.”

“I am quite a mercurial person.”

“Growing up, I wanted blond hair.”

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

“I was a product of the late '70s and early '80s, so when we think of how we're so protective of our kids now, it's sad in a way. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we limit the development of our kids in a way.”

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

“When I was about nine, I was rushed to hospital to have my appendix removed. Like any child, I was more concerned about missing out on having fun with my friends than my health.”

“It makes a lot of people cringe, the idea of being a team player.”

“I'm not a football fan, and not remotely interested in it.”

“I'm a terrible cook but I wish I wasn't.”

“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'd much rather go for a long walk than spend an hour in the gym.”