Miranda Richardson

London keeps me grounded. We don't get praised every time we open our gobs there.

I don't necessarily wait for that massive leading role. I want to keep the juices flowing.

I like the personality of the Belgians. They're deeply eccentric, which is something that comes across in their design - terrific.

I'm not someone who can lie on a beach and do nothing. I am not sure what you are supposed to do, so I get bored. I prefer to have a purpose, such as going to Alaska to see orca whales.

For years, I never knowingly went on a holiday. When I travelled, it was for work. Now I am a huge advocate, particularly to places which have amazing wildlife, such as Antarctica, India and Patagonia.

Feminism was a dirty word for a while.

If I don't believe in a role, I can't pull it off.

If you only took on roles that had the same qualities, then I suppose it might make a critic feel better, if he can see some kind of bedrock. Perhaps that's the old definition of a star, someone who's always going to come up with the same goods. But it intimates limitation to me and I don't want to think of the job like that.

I wouldn't want to go back to my 20s; they were pretty angst-laden times.

It's difficult to keep in touch with someone when you're moving around all the time. I've decided that you can have it all, but you can't have it all, all of the time.

It sounds ideal, a sort of beach childhood. But it wasn't really. I didn't use the beach very much at all.

It's the idea that when you say 'actress', people think of an airy, floaty, no-brain person, which of course you can't be if you are an actor. It is an unfortunate word, which is why, for a time, I hung on to 'actor', because it just seemed more workmanlike, you know, like you say 'woman doctor' not 'doctoress'.

Somebody referred to me as a ringleader, which I wouldn't have classed myself as, but anyway, there you go.

It makes me feel resilient when you tackle different things.

In my industry, everybody wants to know everything about you, and it's just dumb. I think the only way of maintaining some of that mystique is by not giving away too much about yourself. It has served me well so far. I never want to feel up for grabs.

The writing is the springboard for your intuitive stuff and then you see, maybe a colour of what you want to achieve. Then you bring in the technique you've learnt. But when you're on film, you're not always in control of that. That's what makes me believe in a kind of collective unconscious, a sort of experience you draw on.

I have no idea what my persona would be. As far as I'm concerned, I'm changing all the time.

But I hope that you walk around the corner and you get very surprised.

I would rather do many small roles on TV, stage or film than one blockbuster that made me rich but had no acting.

And there's no way I'm going to do Dame Edna.