The best part of learning any profession, when you're really going through those huge stretching escalated times of learning and energy, is when you want to do it so much.

The most surprising thing for my mother and father was when I was actually earning more money than them by the time I was about 18. They thought I was going to be the ne'er do well, who they'd have to keep worrying about.

Blank House was exactly a nice empty sheet where nothing was accountable because you were so naughty that you were in Blank House.

I never used to sleep much. I think we all go through a bit of a time like that where we rage about. If we don't, I don't think you've ever really lived.

I was often very, incredibly naughty, and if I didn't come home at tea time I used to be sent to bed without any dinner. But people used to bring me things: I was better fed in bed.

Both my parents were doctors, and my mother had her surgery in the house. There were six children.

I don't think in my family anyone looked after anyone. It didn't matter how old they were.

I got through my teen years by being a bit of a clown.

I had a quick ear and could pick up languages.

I learnt the theory of movement, which I still teach sometimes. I was very, very ambitious to learn a skill.

I was a hard worker, and I always knew my lines.

My father said, If you want to do acting, you have to be successful, which is a silly thing to say.

My mother felt it was time that I had some parental control, so I went off to America and went to New York.

Once, the parental bed collapsed because all the children sat on it at once.

Suddenly I had a contract and I was earning lots of money.

Very quickly, without really looking back or trying, I was just suddenly lifted into another sphere.

When I did Taming of the Shrew, I was very tired, and I decided to have a holiday and make a documentary.

You never came home for lunch: you just stayed doing, playing, having fun, surfing, running round.

At boarding school you had to wear your name across your chest and your back, and obviously I had a pretty funny name. It wasn't Brown or Smith or Hughes.

I didn't know what to do with myself. I wasn't excited by the teaching of the school. If they'd been intent on really teaching you things, I would have been a little more attentive.