Helena Bonham Carter

“I was weird right from the start. It's just that you can't ever expect people to get you. And I do think that really did mess with my head, being well-known young, when you really don't know who you are.”

“You become very angry and depressed that you keep getting offered only these exceedingly demure and repressed roles. They're so not me. That's why films like Fight Club were so important to me because I think I confounded certain stereotypes and limited perceptions of what I could do as an actress.”

“It took me ages to grow into being a woman, into being happy with it.”

“It took me so many years to move out. I'm definitely a bit of a Peter Pan, reluctant to grow up. It all seemed really nice at home-why change it? Part of me would prefer not to have any responsibility whatsoever.”

“I think my mouth just opens and I spontaneously say things that occur to me.”

“People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career.”

“I have to struggle to change people's perceptions of me. I grew very frustrated with the perception that I'm this shy, retiring, inhibited aristocratic creature when I'm absolutely not like that at all. I think I'm much more outgoing and exuberant than my image.”

“For me, acting is about getting away from myself. So to look at myself is the last thing I want.”

“There is no normality in life.”

“Usually I'm frustrated when I look at my films and I don't believe that I've made a real transformation beyond my usual sets of gestures and expressions. I still have this nagging feeling that it's me, that I didn't create a unique character.”

“Mothers are the heart of any household. I try to spend as much time with my children as I possibly can while also fulfilling my professional duties. It is tricky, but I think I manage it.”

“It's different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying.”

“I enjoy those small chats you have when people come up and talk to you about your work. It only involves a few seconds of effort to be nice to those people, and I am very grateful for the kind words that people have taken the trouble to express to me in person.”

“You can actually have a pitch button, you know, to get people on pitch.”

“I should get a few ribs taken out, because I'll be in a corset for the rest of my life.”

“I look completely like my mum. She's very foreign, very Jewish.”

“I liked pretending to be other people: I could reinvent myself, reinvent my own reality.”

“I'm drawn to emotionally damaged characters because there is more to unlock.”

“A film actor is just a victim of directors and editors.”

“I just went and got an agent because I thought I can create my own world - you can't right your own life, but you can escape to a world where you can have control.”