Gina McKee

“A distant cousin sent me some genealogy report on my father's side, and it's sort of what I suspected. Coal miners for generations... four or maybe five generations.”

“The first time I came to London on my own, I was 15. I was absolutely oblivious to so many things. I had no expectations, no fears. I just came to do a National Youth Theatre season one summer. It was just brilliant.”

“My instinct is probably one of the strongest assets I've got, workwise.”

“I love that, even after jumping through hoops forever, I can still get that buzz, that hook. That's very healthy, but it's bittersweet, too, because if you don't get the part, you have to deal with the disappointment. I don't think I'll ever negotiate those peaks and troughs wholly healthily.”

“I'm extremely self-critical. Although I try not to be ridiculous about it, wearing horsehair shirts and all that. It's a private exercise I don't necessarily share with other people.”

“I've had two instances when I've met journalists face to face and we've had good interviews and I've said, 'We don't have children, by the way,' and then they've written it. I'm not sure what that's about. As misleading facts go, it's not a terrible one but it isn't true - we don't have kids.”

“Usually I can go for three or four weeks and then I start to bake cakes or make jewellery and I think, 'hang on a minute, I'm obviously bored rigid. I need to get back out there.'”

“There's a way of negotiating how you portray your private life publicly that I've never had the skill to do.”

“There are different definitions of love, and one of the most wonderful definitions of love is to allow somebody to be.”

“Where I grew up in the North-east, the community there, and the way people relate to one another, goes very deep. But I don't define myself as a Northerner in that I don't live in the North.”

“I think I'm very open and friendly and warm.”

“The National Youth Theatre did one very simple but incredible thing for me: it made me realise I had choices.”

“I think it's nice to be able to make a product, put it out there and let other people decide what they think.”

“I was one of those kids who found it difficult to eat anything that looked like an animal.”

“I don't feel comfortable talking about my private life, and some people in my private life don't feel comfortable about me talking about it. So I don't.”

“Being an actor somehow can be a perverse extension of that feeling we generally all have as children, that feeling of wanting to please. Of course you're looking for affirmation, encouragement.”