I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn’t much of a stretch.

I don’t have technique because I never learnt any.

I don’t think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there’s some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.

I have had lots of friends who’ve been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care.

I think the point about ActionAid is what it’s asking people to do is engage with poor people in developing countries and understand what their lives are like and understand how the way we live our lives impacts on theirs.

Children don’t need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.

What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together.

We need men and women to sit down and talk to each other about sex honestly and openly. That would help us fight Aids so immediately. But our lack of communication is hugely problematic.

Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn’t listening.

I’ve a problem with the word charity because I think that NGOs, as I prefer calling them, really do take the work of moral and social responsibilities that ought to be taken on by governments.

My appearance has changed a lot over the years, but it has far more to do with how I feel about being a woman.

It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly.

Indeed – judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.

The Catholic Church – it’s so difficult because I don’t want say anything offensive but it makes me very angry that religious leaders from this faith have tried to respond negatively to sexual education and to the promotion of condom use.

The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.

Tell him I mind having to look pretty, that’s what I mind, because it is so much more of an effort.

But certainly in Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, people don’t really talk about sex and certainly religious leaders – some of them – up to now have been very unwilling to accept, for instance, the promotion of condom use.

And it’s absolutely true that male sexual behaviour and female responses to male demands change a lot when they start communicating – and the levels of the communication that I’ve seen on the ground in very, very poor areas are so high and I think why don’t we have that here?

I hate the way market forces try to separate us out in to the appropriate demographic – basically in order to sell us things. We need to find stories that we can enjoy together, not separately.

My worst quality is impatience.

I think that my work is my attempt, I suppose, is to try and become a piece of connective tissue. I’m trying to communicate with people here and in America – in rich countries – about what I see on the ground in badly affected areas.

Children are the most wonderful audiences. What’s struck me most is that that they watch it so silently, until the end when they shriek and shout and clap.

If you don’t want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.

We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really.

The trouble is it’s very difficult to pin-point the most important thing because Aids affects everyone in different levels of society, differently and you have to respond to it differently.

A lot of people in my world – in the acting world – have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

If you’ve got to my age, you’ve probably had your heart broken many times. So it’s not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.

Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They’re kinder.

But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I’ve failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don’t get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.

I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn’t much of a stretch.