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SUNDAY HERALD, JANUARY 14, 2001:

• "I love children. And when I am around them ... I really enjoy playing with them. It's such an excuse to be a kid yourself, isn't it?"
• Her father comes from Glasgow (her grandmother still lives in Cardonald) and was, until his retirement a year ago, a diplomat for the Foreign Office. McCrory was born in London but the family moved to Oslo in Norway when she was six weeks old, then, when she was two, to Africa, living in Cameroon then Tanzania. From Africa, the family moved to Paris and then to Buckinghamshire.
• "Africa is an incredible country to grow up in because you remain a child for much longer. You don't have the European pressures of 'Do you look good? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you smoke yet?' You know, I came back with bunches and cigarettes were for grown ups."
• "That was the biggest thing my parents gave me: a feeling that I was going to be the thing of tomorrow."
• She was accepted at Oxford to read English but chose instead to study acting at the Drama Centre in London. Now she says she may take an Open University degree when she's "about 50". In the meantime, she remains a voracious reader, having recently devoured The Old Man And The Sea, Sophie's World, Memoirs Of A Geisha and reread A Farewell To Arms and Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. As this reading list suggests, McCrory has a fierce intelligence. But she has a tendency to underestimate it: "I wouldn't say that I was intelligent but I think I am intelligent enough to understand intelligent people's ideas. It's that frustration. We'd all like to be a Tolstoy, but I just get to say his lines."
• "I'm definitely a survivor. I've never been neurotic about pain. Ever since I've been a kid I've recognised that there are times when you go through some awful shit in your life, and that everybody does, and there's no avoiding it. So I've always sort of slid down the razor blade straight away, picked myself up and gone on. I'm not really someone to nurse wounds a lot. Only because I don't think you need to welcome pain. It'll always be there so you don't need to hold on to it."
• "I really love pressure. It's when I think I'm most relaxed. I like the intensity of it. I love it when all the fireworks are going off. It means that people really give a shit about what they're doing. I don't think that the best projects are necessarily the happiest projects. I much prefer people to have a fight than I mean there's nothing more boring than people going off and bitching in their Winnebagoes behind each other's backs. I just think, 'Oh, get some balls.'"
• She is ... certain about her ultimate professional ambition. "To do either one great moment on stage or one great moment on screen that I look at and think, 'That's it, that's one of the moments people will remember.' Like in The Man Who Would Be King where they are standing on the bridge. Just to have one of those moments and be able to say, 'I did one of those.'"

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THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2003:

• What are you doing for Christmas? "I'm going to Wales, to my mum and dad's. I'm one of those rare people who likes my family at Christmas. Me and all the other under-seven-year-olds."
• What are you going to ask Santa for? "Books, really boring, like encyclopaedias. All those things you need and would never be arsed to buy yourself. Or afford. ... I'm like, 'No, Mum, is that how much it cost! Thanks.'"
• How do you like Shoreditch? "I really like it. My father's a diplomat and we have lived everywhere -- Sweden, Brussels, Paris, Africa -- and it's how I imagined London would be. All those old higgledy piggledy streets. And there's a nice energy. Very urban. The smell of carbon monoxide in the morning."
• Are you a very urban girl? "Yes. If I'm in a city I like being right in the trash can and if I'm in the country I like being right on the top of the mountain. Suburbia gives me a nervous rash."
• Did you relate to manipulative Barbara in Charles II at all? "Who the hell's going to admit to being like Barbara? I relate to her appetite for life but that's all. I'm shit at playing games."
• Were you shocked when you saw you had to bite the penis off a dead priest? "No, I laughed my head off. I thought I've got to play this character - she's insane. I thought if I can get to the point where people will actually believe that she'd do that - that's a great challenge."
• What's your worst habit? "Smoking."
• Have you ever tried to give up? "Yeah. Lasted 48 hours and I went to a party and went bright red and got a stutter. You can't be shy when you're an actress - you've got to have a bit more grace. It's therapy or fags and quite frankly I don't have time for therapy."
• You had to be really plain as Margaret in Lucky Jim, what was that like? "I think that if you don't want to be judged on the way you look you shouldn't do it to yourself. If you want to be considered as an actress rather than as a B-list celebrity, then don't put yourself in that situation."
• You went to boarding school. Did you have Malory Towers fantasies? "No. I'd grown up in these fantastic places with elephants outside the door, swimming with miles of sea urchins underneath you on coral reefs. The idea of being in a boarding school with freezing snow outside wasn't fantastical."
• What were the best and worst things about the experience? "The best was the girls and learning about friendship. The worst was seeing girls who weren't really loved. Some were sent because their parents were divorcing or didn't want them at home, and they were really lonely. That's hard because however much you love somebody as a friend you can never be their mum and dad."
• Has growing up all over the place left you restless? "Emotionally? I think it did for many years but I don't feel that any more. I'm very happy in London, with my friends. I like travelling but I like coming home."
• It sounds brutal but you're 35 and single, are children on your mind? "People talk about children as if they're some separate issue from being with someone you want to marry. I can't imagine saying I want a child, I can only imagine looking at a man and thinking I want his child. Because you're not in control of things like that in life I've learned to relax."
• Lucky you! "I don't think I've ever had a lot of assumptions about what I've wanted in the future so it's not like, oh this is supposed to be happening to me now. But I've learned to trust life because it's given me very good things."
• What's your new year's resolution? "Eat more fruit."

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TIME OUT LONDON, MAY 2004:

• "[Drama Centre] rejected me at first, telling me I hadn't lived enough. Undaunted, I went away to Italy for a year, then on my return I sent the Centre an envelope stuffed with photocopies of the letters I had written to other schools rejecting their offers of places. It did the trick."
• "[My education at Drama Centre] wasn't just a foundation in acting, but a preparation for the job, which isn't quite the same thing. It was a tough course, but it's a tough profession. It teaches you to ask questions, how to look at yourself -- which you need if you're an actor -- and how to keep constantly training yourself."
• "What you get [from Drama Centre's focus on character analysis] are blueprints for work as an actor, which you can either reject or go with. When I was there, we learned eight or nine of the key approaches about acting, character analysis and psychology. Drama Centre is quite unique in that respect."
• "Drama Centre genuinely inspired me. It changed me, in fact, as a person, as well as an actress. Lots of people can act. But after a few years in work, there are so many genuinely unhappy people, because they hate being freelance or can't take the criticism. At Drama Centre London you find out at 23 whether you have the stomach for criticism rather than at 45, as a card-carrying member of Alcoholics Anonymous."

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THE INDEPENDENT, JULY 1, 2004:

• She has often been astounded by journalists' accounts of her, and points out, "We're both sitting at this table now, but later you'll go away and write up this interview, and when I read it I probably won't recognise myself."
• "Travelling definitely makes you less scared of change. I've never confused staying in one place with stability. And it makes you really interested in people other than yourself. And very adaptable."
• "[I] can't remember ever not wanting to act."
• "I've been really lucky. Theatre doesn't pay much, so I don't have the biggest flat in London, and I don't see my friends as much as I'd like. But I haven't had to compromise on my work. It's a real honour to be given that opportunity, and I do feel that you shouldn't waste it. If you are lucky enough to have a choice, choose the stuff that interests you, that's going to make you happy, rather than what other people might think would be an intelligent career choice or would get you the biggest bucks. Life's too short."
• So how does she feel about being required so often to be overtly sexy? "Oh, it's a real bummer," she drawls in a voice dripping with faux ennui. "No, it's great! What I enjoy is exploring sexuality from a slightly different angle, rather than just aesthetic beauty or the obvious Britney-type sexuality. Sexuality starts in the brain. What I would see as totally unthreatening a man might find terrifying, and something I would find terrifying a man might find a turn-on. I find that difference fascinating."
• "There's a part of me that thinks, 'I'm an actor, it's part of my job to do interviews.' But there's another part of me, as Helen, as a person, that feels very vulnerable."
• "[I am] much more comfortable subjugating my personality to someone else's. I'm an interpreter. That's my job. Acting isn't about you."
• "I think what disturbs me about the whole idea of [celebrity culture] is that it's a lie. "People don't look like that, or behave like that. The world isn't full of happy endings. And the more you keep telling people that it is, the more terrified and lonely they feel when they see that's not what their life is like. And that's not the job of an actor, or of a playwright. It's to reassure the audience that life, as muddled and as wonderful as it is, is worth living. And that pain is just as much a part of it as pleasure and happiness."

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WHAT'S ON STAGE, JULY 5, 2004:

• "I think whatever job you’re doing at the time is your complete preoccupation, and after it, you’re then on to the next one. I’m not particularly nostalgic. I don’t tend to look back and sort through which were my favourites."
• "Awards mean absolutely nothing until you receive one; then they become strangely meaningful."
• "I’ll always keep coming back to the theatre. I love the direct connection with an audience and the chance to sustain and develop a character anew every night. Playing live is much more exciting."
• On roles she would like to play: "Of course, the Miss Julie’s and Hedda Gabler’s and Beatrice from Much Ado. I’d like to do some more comedy. It’s technically more difficult and I enjoy the immediate response from the audience."
• On what profession she would have pursued if she hadn't become an actor: "Taught. I think probably something in the arts – I wouldn’t be very useful to anybody taking physics or maths! I’ve no idea why I wanted to be an actor. You know, I think you remember the reason for something depending on what you want to justify at the time. Where you are in the present determines where your past is. But maybe that’s because I’ve been rehearsing Pinter all day. Pause, silence. Pause, silence."
• If she could swap places with one person (living or dead) for a day, who she would be: "I was going to say Groucho Marx, but actually I’d go for Harpo. No lines to learn."
• Favourite books: "Recently, in preparation for Old Times, I’ve been reading The Life and Work of Harold Pinter by Michael Billington. My favourites are probably James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and the collected poems of Philip Larkin and Dorothy Parker. Also, the A to Z."
• Favourite holiday destinations: I go to Italy quite a lot, anywhere from Capri to Rome, Florence, Venice. I lived in Paris for years and like to go back there too."
• Favourite after-show haunts: "Anywhere with good lighting."

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THE TIMES, JUNE 13, 2005:

• "It's far more terrifying falling in love at 35 because you understand the complexities of it and you have a lot more to lose."
• "The advantage of travelling and different cultures [as I did in my childhood] is that it teaches you to adapt and use your intuition because you have to go to different schools and you want to be popular and you know you'll only be there a couple of terms. It suits me to be in things and then leave them. I like the change. But I'm very secure and not neurotic in any way because of the grounding my parents gave me."
• "I didn't see theatre as a kid in Africa. There wasn't any. The first film I saw was screened by my father in East Africa. It was The Man Who Would Be King and I was completely blown away by the fact that it was a film and this was at the age of nine. I never had idols or posters of people on my walls. The people I grew up with in my family because of my father's job were statesmen, scientists, politicians."
• "I'm not intellectual enough for ideas to interest me and I'll never be capable of original thought. But when I see truth and humanity on stage I understand how that changes and affects me and how it can really change my view of the world. ... Also, I adore showing off!"
• "I remember [in my adolescence] listening to all the punk and Goth stuff and we marched on the South African Embassy. Our generation felt it was a responsibility to stand up. Your voice did matter. Your vote did count. You had a responsibility to be connected to your society because you could influence it. People aren't just products of nature, they're products of society, and I'm definitely a product of that era."
• "Now the younger generation of actor just wants to 'succeed'. They just want to be famous within the system that exists. I had a theatre company, I built the Landor Theatre with Saskia Reeves, I produced plays at the Royal Court and the Donmar, and that was our generation. You don't just want to be a participant, you want to change the system. ... And you know that you're not going to make much money in theatre, so you might as well say what you want."
• "I look for the conflict in a play because of that. I get so bored in interviews with people saying: 'It's so amazing. You looked so ugly [in that role]; how did you do that to your ego?' But I'm an actress telling a story. It has nothing to do with me. What you're doing and what you believe in is more important than yourself."
• McCrory cites two of her big artistic influences as Caravaggio and e. e. cummings: "[One of my biggest artistic influences is] Caravaggio because his paintings represent for me the freedom of being 17 in Italy; [another is] e. e. cummings because I'm slightly dyslexic so for me he writes perfectly."
• "Now people ask: 'Are you going to LA?' And I go: 'What are you talking about?' I find theatre far more glamorous. Bunches of flowers at the stage door, people coming round with champagne. That's far more glamorous than a load of photographers at a gala evening screaming, 'Oi! Helen! Here!' There's nothing glamorous about that."

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THE INDEPENDENT, JUNE 19, 2005:

• What are you reading in bed? "To be absolutely honest, nothing. I've read As You Like It 50,000 times in the last few months and my eyes are really tired by the end of an evening. If I were on a beach, I would love to be reading. I have Moby Dick on my shelf waiting for when I have time. Or when I retire."
• What was your main cultural passion at 14? "At 14 I was living in Paris because my father was in the diplomatic corps. I would mainly be reading Flaubert and Zola and Camus and Baudelaire. Very much in a solitary way, it may surprise you to hear, dressed all in black in a caf. Like all teenagers, I thought no one had ever understood the world like I did and yes, I wrote my fair share of toe-curlingly embarrassing poems."
• Which is the least disposable piece of pop music? "I think it would have to be Bob Dylan -- 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. It really reminds me of my childhood. My parents' record has great big jumps in the middle from when I used to stand next to the record player and just pogo to that song."
• And the most disposable classical music? "Chinese opera. I was taken to one once in Taiwan. For the first two hours I managed to concentrate and, like a good diplomatic daughter, I ooh-ed and ah-ed in the right places and clapped when I thought it was the end of the movement. But by the end of the fourth hour I was feeling deranged. It reminded me of Physics O-level again. Completely incomprehensible from start to finish."
• What would your ideal alternative job be? "A prima ballerina. I did ballet a lot when I was a little girl. Quite seriously rather than just 'I enjoy wearing pointes' ballet. I did hours of practice every day and once danced Thumbelina in front of the Nigerian president, you know -- quite serious. I'm going to take it up again, actually -- once you've done ballet it's really hard to start going to the gym because you're taught to connect your body to your actions. So once I finish playing Rosalind I will be back in ballet
  class."
• Who should play you in your Hollywood biopic? And who should play your nemesis in the final scene? "Should I really stitch myself up here and say Cate Blanchett on her knees, due to the height difference, wearing a dark wig? Perhaps I should just say Burt Reynolds. And for my nemesis? Doctor Who. He can strangle me with his multicoloured scarf."
• Which cultural item would you most like to steal? "It does sadden me when people buy these very famous beautiful works of art and put them away. So I'd steal all the paintings from private collections and found a great public gallery. Like Robin Hood."
• Which painting most corresponds with your vision of yourself? "I've never really seen a painting and thought, 'that's me'. I am sure all girls have been told they look like Degas paintings -- I have, because I have legs that certainly look like I did ballet in my youth, if you see what I mean. And I sometimes get sent postcards of Spanish paintings -- ladies in their mantillas with little pug dogs. There's the Spanish saying 'God put your eye on with a sooty thumb' which means you have that dark spot beneath the eye, which I suppose I have."
• What's the most fashionable thing you own? "I'm not great on fashion. I think you should avoid it, really, because by its nature if you're fashionable you're just about to become unfashionable. At the moment my favourite things are flip- flops and very big sunglasses. They're so big I look like I'm basically wearing a visor."
• And the least fashionable? "Probably a pair of blue fluffy slippers my Mum gave me. I thought they were Ugg boots and wore them out to Tate Modern, when they became sodden and grey and I realised they were not Ugg boots at all. More like Mugg boots."
• Your house is on fire. What object do you save? "My insurance policy. Also, for all my parts I collect a scrapbook of background material " pictures and things. I've got a big filing cabinet full of scrapbooks. It'd be heavy to shift, though. I might go down with the fire."
• Do you have a secret cultural passion? "I love cartoons. I love anything from Loony Tunes and Daffy Duck and Fred Quimby to even the modern stuff like South Park and The Simpsons. It's the best acting on the telly. I've got a little roof terrace and a projector and I project them on the wall there. I put on old silent cartoons, along with records playing at different tempos. It's lovely. It's basically a playground."

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THE GUARDIAN, JULY 2, 2005:

• What is your idea of perfect happiness? "Requited love."
• What is your greatest fear? "Regret and bad lighting."
• With which historical figure do you most identify? "Many -- that's what attracts me to acting."
• Which living person do you most admire? "My parents."
• What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? "Impatience."
• What is the trait you most deplore in others? "Cowardice."
• What makes you depressed? "That smoking's bad for me, and Heat magazine."
• Where would you like to live? "In London-on-Sea."
• What is your greatest extravagance? "My lifestyle."
• What objects do you always carry with you? "A phone."
• What do you most dislike about your appearance? "My reflection."
• What is your most unappealing habit? "Procrastination."
• What is your favourite smell? "The ocean."
• What is your favourite book? "I haven't read it yet."
• For what cause would you die? "For love or immortality."
• Do you believe in monogamy? "Yes."
• What do you consider the most overrated virtue? "Physical beauty."
• When and where were you happiest? "Now."
• What single thing would improve the quality of your life? "Staff."
• What would your motto be? "People have mottos?"
• How would you like to die? "Content."
• How would you like to be remembered? "Often, with a public holiday."

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THE EVENING STANDARD, JULY 29, 2005:

• What advice would you give to a tourist? "Don't mistake London for Britain."
• What is your earliest London memory? "Being under a rug in my grandad's car, aged nine, and seeing snow for the first time. He picked my family up from the airport after we moved from Tanzania. I was shocked at the cold, something I have since got used to."
• What do you miss most when you're out of London? "Variety and originality."
• What are your extravagances? "Black cabs and never looking at the restaurant bill."
• What would you do if you were Mayor for the day? "Ban all traffic in central London."

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ES MAGAZINE, AUGUST 25, 2006:

• "I've never been broody before, but when I met Damian I became very different about relationships."
• "At 18, if someone's asking you to explore certain facets of your personality and show it to other people, that's really tough. And the teachers [at the Drama Centre] didn't mince words; they could be vicious. They believed I had such confidence, they had to be strong in order to break it down. ... That's what critics do, isn't it? What the experience shows you is whether you're the sort of person who can pick yourself up and carry on or, if you're going to be so upset by criticism, you do something else."
• "When people turn against you, it doesn't matter who it is, it's horrid. There are reasons people decide to be discreet."
• "Nobody wants to marry someone nobody else wants! It's part of his job, and it's part of my job as well. Damian doesn't mind; he just puts the flowers in the back of the car and drives home. We understand where it comes in life. It's because people project on to you; some people are like that."

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MARIE CLAIRE, NOVEMBER, 2006:

• What Helen says about her mother: "Mum is my best friend, but I don't tell her everything. I don't tell her about my sex life, oh God, no -- but I don't tell my friends about that either. My parents still laugh together. Having grown up around their marriage makes me feel so lucky. It gave me the strength to wait until I'd found the person I was most happy with. I might have settled for someone else, thinking that was fine, but, when I met Damian, I knew the difference because I'd lived with the real thing. Not that they go around throwing roses at each other, but it's unconditional love: and that's what they gave me."
• What Helen's mother says about Helen: "Helen was always conscious of an audience -- she could be a little monster at home, but if we took her outside she'd be as good as gold. Helen has quite a reputation in the theatre now, and my friends say it hasn't changed her at all, which is lovely. I love Helen to bits, I am her best friend, but I'm also her mum, very much so -- I can be disapproving. I am so excited about the new baby, she'll be a great mum. It's going to be such fun."

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THE TELEGRAPH, OCTOBER 11, 2006:

• "[Manon is] very easy and very beautiful. So far she's also very calm, so Damian should definitely be getting a DNA test for that one. ... I've no idea what sort of parents we'll be. It's like any relationship, it grows; we'll have to see what Manon's like, and whether she's a nervous, timid child or an extrovert. We're not following a book or doing the tough love thing. To be honest, I'm feeding her more on whim than demand – she only has to look at me sideways and I'm there, day or night. I don't mind; as I've never needed eight hours' sleep, I can take it or leave it."
• "I love working. Selfishly. Just for me and my own happiness. I was due to appear in the new Harry Potter film, but they couldn't get insurance because I was expecting a baby. I have to say that when they told me I was devastated for about five seconds -- then I had to remind myself that I was, after all, pregnant."
• "Lauren Bacall came backstage after a show I did with Emily Watson on Broadway and rasped: 'You were fabulous. I've been a fan of yours for years, I love all your work. I adored you in Breaking the Waves.' I thought Oh God, she's got the wrong f---ing person, oh s--t, oh s--t, so I quietly pointed out she actually meant Emily." Bacall was mortified, whereupon quick-witted McCrory smoothly broke the tension by declaring: "It's such a pleasure to meet you, because ever since Philadelphia Story, Miss Hepburn, I've always been a great fan of yours." The Hollywood legend burst into laughter, and duly swept her off to supper.
• "I was at a dinner party recently where people were discussing The Queen and most of them had no idea I was in it. I didn't tell them. I thought that finding out what they felt about the film was far more interesting than the fact I was in it."
• "One morning I'll be tripping down the road in kitten heels and a Chanel coat, the next I'll be in something floaty. In a broader sense too, I thrive on constant change, and it doesn't worry me, I don't feel threatened by it."
• "I learnt that in England, as soon as you open your mouth you are judged. In Italy it's all largely about your shoes, and in France it's what school you went to. From an early age I learnt to adapt and to live in the moment because you can't hanker after your past."
• "I'm half Scottish, half Welsh and I regard red hair as perfectly ordinary. And to set the record straight, contrary to reports, [Damian] has never referred to himself as the 'Ginger Ninja'."
• "Some women seem to spend their childhoods dreaming about their perfect wedding day. I've got no fantasies to fall back on. My daydreams were always about winning the 800 metres to wild cheers, not about completing myself with another person."

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HARPER'S BAZAAR (UK EDITION), MAY 2007:

• What is your favourite "guilty pleasure" film? "The Champ."
• What is your favourite scene in Some Like It Hot? "Marilyn walks through the bunks on the train."

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THE OBSERVER, JUNE 10, 2007:

• Inspiration: "Bob Dylan."
• Big break: "Richard Eyre when he was at the National. He has helped me along more than anyone."
• Favourite theatres: "The Almeida, Donmar and National, because of the people. In all three, the backstage and front-of-house are as involved with the play as the people on stage. I'll always ask the ushers what they thought of the previous night's show, because they'll give you an honest answer."
• Why is British acting so good? "We practise it more than anyone else. We don't earn as much money so we've got to work all the time. We have a tradition of theatre, and you've really got to cut it in theatre."
• Are you proud of being British? "Oh yeah."

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THE TELEGRAPH, SEPTEMBER 30, 2007:

• "I did have a honeymoon. It lasted an evening. It was very short, but very lovely. We got married in the Kensington and Chelsea registry office, then walked down the King's Road and had lunch in a nice restaurant around the corner with 11 people. A very romantic day."
• "Actors and actresses have sensitivity bludgeoned out of them at birth. We are that rare combination of vanity and self-obsession. Actually, I don't know about Damian, but I do get nervous, especially when speaking in public without a script. I had to present the prizes for an under-12s poetry-reading once. I was performing in three plays at the Olivier Theatre, back to back, 17 hours with no nerves whatsoever, but I stood up to say a few words and my voice wavered and I became self-conscious. ... My trouble is I make no connection between myself and what I do on stage or in front of a camera, so when I am being myself I get very, very nervous and take tranquillisers."
• Did she fluff any lines at her wedding? "No, but it did make me nervous, even though there were only a handful of people there, because Damian and I are very private people. I think I would have found it hard to do it in front of a lot of other people."
• They had a ban on children at their wedding, a ban that included their own daughter. "She came for the meal instead. It was more a matter of not wanting babies there. You see, the way I figured it, it always looks bad if you start staring daggers at a screaming baby. It gives the wrong signal to your future in-laws. Besides, I wouldn't want to be distracted, because they were the most serious vows I had ever exchanged."
• A church wedding was ruled out because it would have felt hypocritical. "When we told people we were getting married in a registry some said, 'Why not a church?' and we thought, 'Hello? When have you ever seen us in a church?' I would have felt hypocritical saying I meant the bit about staying together but not the bit about the Holy Spirit." She sounds unusually earnest for a moment, but her droll side cannot be suppressed for long. "That said, an atheist who gets married in a church does have a get-out clause. You are practically not married. You can say, 'Ah yes, because I meant that bit, but obviously didn't mean that bit, that means the whole contract is invalidated.'"
• "[Being married to someone who is also an actor] gives you a shorthand about your job -- makes it easier to relate. Also, you know the realities. Some people think acting is all about laughing as you sip champagne from a slipper at a premiere. But actually most of it is unglamorous."
• On filming Frankenstein near Dungeness nuclear power station during the early stages of her pregnancy: "Do you think that was wise?" she asks rhetorically, imagining the news stories, "And eight months later her own Frankenstein's monster arrived. ..."
• "[My parents] were always very encouraging. I never felt unloved. They gave me great stability. I think that is why I am so relaxed as a parent myself; they gave me a great blueprint. Besides, parenthood is only a seven-day-a-week job and apparently in 18 years you can stop worrying so much. I'll have a nice nap and a shandy then."
• "Coming here [to London schools] to board taught me a lot. I learnt that in England as soon as you open your mouth you are judged. In Italy it is all about your shoes."
• "When I was in my teens, I was dragged along to some function with [my father, a Foreign Office diplomat] in Brussels, and when the national anthem struck up, I rolled my eyes and sat down. He took me to one side and said, 'Never do that again. The man standing next to us is the head of the SAS. His friends die for Queen and country, so show some respect.' It's a lesson I've never forgotten."
• "Because we moved around a lot when I was a child, my sense of home and belonging was with people rather than places. My whole identity was grounded in my parents and brother and sister. I don't think having a daughter altered me enormously in that respect."
• "We're going to have the baby out there [in Los Angeles] in November. Should be interesting. LA is a city that makes you wash your hands before you go to the supermarket; ust imagine how clean the hospitals will be. I'll have to find out how soon I can bring the baby back on a plane. Is there a minimum age? I don't want its ears to explode."
• "I was supposed to appear in [Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix,] but they couldn't get the insurance because I was pregnant. They said I can be in the next one, though." After a pause, she adds with a grin, "I play the old Harry, who is 72 and on steroids."

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THE TIMES, OCTOBER 19, 2007:

• "It's very important to get the physicality of a character right, because it tells us so much about them."
• McCrory, it turns out is effectively allergic to fame, suspicious of journalists and uncomfortable with interviews that she likens to "someone rummaging through your knicker drawer."
• "Lots of my friends are journalists. So I know that they'll go to an interview and say, ‘Oh f***k! I've got to stitch them up! I have to write this horrible thing about Gordon Brown because they've got pictures of him where he looks satanic and they want me to write the copy that goes with it.' So you always have to read what's written about you with your heart in your mouth because it's all totally subjective."
• On being described as The Next Judi Dench: "The new Judi Dench? Well that's just a journalistic term isn't it? What's odd is that even when you read nice things about yourself it's completely confusing. You think, ‘But I'm not like that at all.'"
• "There is a level of exhaustion that comes with motherhood. And there are times when you feel as though you have completely run out of energy. But, on the plus side, I am the most unneurotic mother you could ever meet. I do find it tiring and hard work, but never, ever stressful."
• She took a year out -- the only time, she says, when she has not worked -- to enjoy her first pregnancy and the early months of Manon's life. "I was just another mum changing nappies and pushing a pram up the Holloway Road, which sounds mundane, but, actually wasn't. Still, what I have learnt is that while I absolutely love motherhood and really enjoy it, I also very much need to act."
• "I became an actress, I suppose, because I'm a natural interpreter. I don't originate ideas, but I have a huge respect for people who write fantastic plays or scripts and I feel that you learn so much about people by playing them. That is the attraction for me, anyway."
• "My childhood was very peripatetic. We moved around a lot and, therefore, from a very young age, almost by necessity, you lived in the moment because you didn't know where you were going to be tomorrow and where you were today was very different from where you were yesterday. So you don't search for stability and you adapt very quickly to different situations. I don't think I've ever felt trapped at any point in my life."
• [She and Damian] married without much ado at Kensington and Chelsea Register office back in July and then had a quiet meal near the Kings Road with a select bunch of family and friends. "It was lovely," she says.
• "Being with another actor means that you have a short hand and an empathy for each other's world. It also means that you're with someone who doesn't find your work and your world nearly as interesting as everybody else does. So Damian and I don't even talk much about each other's work. I've seen hardly any of his and he's seen hardly any of mine. So we are able to talk about completely different things, which is a relief, actually." She is not, then, the type who holds up a crucifix at the idea of falling for a fellow thesp. "I don't understand that at all," she says. "Who has such low self-esteem about their own f**king job that they don't believe they could ever find anyone else in it attractive? What nonsense."
• Her husband, she says, will be with her when she gives birth in LA, just as he was when Manon was delivered by emergency Caesarean. This time she's hoping for a natural birth. "But, the experience of birth is so profound that, really, the way in which the baby arrives doesn't seem to alter anything."
• "I'll call you to let you know if motherhood is different second time around," she smiles.

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THE INDEPENDENT, JANUARY 8, 2008:

• "I've often sat down with people talking about a film I've been in and they haven't realised I was in it. I think they're just being weird by not saying anything until I realise what has happened. ... What really matters to me is what my peers think."
• McCrory and Lewis seem as well grounded as it is possible to be when you're one half of a famous couple who divide their time between north London and Los Angeles. There are flourishes of luvviness -- "darlings" and enthusiastic swearing with a cut-glass accent -- yet they are clearly devoted to each other. He accompanies her to our meeting at a Soho restaurant and settles her and their tiny baby son into a corner table before politely disappearing.
• "I love theatre because it's just me and the audience. It's the litmus test in acting, to be able to sustain a performance over one, two or three hours."
• "I have really started to enjoy the craft of film acting. I do a lot more film and television now than theatre. The difference between screen and stage is that in theatre it's tangible whether someone can act or not. I've worked with people, who will remain nameless, where a film scene has had to be cobbled together from a whole day's worth of takes because the actor is shit. They can't remember the lines; if they do remember the lines, they can't remember the moves. In the final project, they will look great, because the director will cut the film for them. In theatre, you can't employ someone who can't remember their bloody lines. That's the difference."
• "I used to be really ignorant about film. I didn't know anything about film culture or film actors and I still haven't seen many of the great movies. Damian's a great film buff and he really introduced me to them. I suppose a part of me thought my ignorance was slightly charming, but actually it's my job and I should bloody know them. We watch a lot of stuff now. The more I see, the more I appreciate it, and the more I'm excited about being involved in it."
• "I'm not into mainstream Hollywood. Not because I'm a snob, it's just because I don't like it; it's not my thing. I'm not really their demographic anyway. I mean, I just get in rages about things, so I think it's easier for me not to watch it -- all those big tits and guns."

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YOU (DAILY MAIL MAGAZINE), APRIL 12, 2008:

• "Sex is all in the brain."
• "If you think you are beautiful in a scene, you will come across as beautiful. I don't think looks are important, I think what's important is if someone is sexy. Someone might have a great face, but all the sex appeal of a walnut. And then other people walk into the room and you're like, 'Wow!!' because they've just got it. And my husband has definitely got it -- whatever 'it' is."
• "[I had] no broody instincts, none, until I met Damian. It was his great genes talking. Do I think I'll have any more children? Oh God, you sound like Damian," she says with a gurgle of laughter. "I don't know. I'm very, very happy as we are at the moment. We are very lucky to have a girl and a boy."
• "[Damian] really enjoys [taking care of our children] -- he's very, very thoughtful."
• "The Life schedule was very tough on him: he went to work at two in the afternoon on Friday and didn't wrap till seven or eight o'clock on Saturday morning. It's an 18-hour day, it's brutal and it's just seen as product. And that kind of schedule just doesn't exist in England. We don't let it, it would be illegal."
• "What I find most interesting about acting is transforming myself. Some actors are always themselves and they're fantastic at it, but you know you're always watching Clint Eastwood. Other actors really enjoy becoming other people and losing their ego, and I'm the latter."
• "We have our base here in the UK because this is where our life is; we can go to the States for specific jobs and then come back. ... America is such a nation of suppressed emotion, and when you arrive in LA, you can smell the fear. It's the most alien country I've ever been to. People are frightened of failure over there, whereas in Britain you get into a black cab and the driver is happy to tell you how s*** his day is. If you're constantly frightened of being unhappy, how bloody exhausting must that be?"
• "I always vowed that if I ever had a large chest then I would definitely display my decolletage from time to time, and I was true to my word [when that time came while I was breast-feeding Manon]."
• "What's so idyllic about growing up somewhere like Africa is you don't have constant pressures or images of what you should buy and what you should look like. It's a media-free environment where people don't have very much. People talk instead about who's going to have a bicycle in the village that day; it's great, because it teaches you very early in life what the real priorities are. My parents gave me a very stable upbringing by providing me with unconditional love from a very young age, and it's only as you get older that you realise how lucky you were. Not only does it stand you in good stead when you leave home, but also when you have children. I didn't think, 'Oh God, am I a good mother or a bad mother? What do I do?' They were such natural parents that I feel very natural myself as a parent."
• "But I didn't deliberately do it that way [have two children 14 months apart] to get it over with quickly, as it were, because Gulliver was a happy surprise. I suddenly stopped being able to breast-feed Manon easily and found out that it was because I was already three months pregnant and my body was knackered. We were off to the Oscars last year and I was pulling my stomach in ready for the dress fittings, thinking, 'Urggh...' Well, there you go," she says cheerfully. "The bulge was little Gulliver on his way."
• So convinced was she that Manon would be a boy that she nicknamed her bump Boris. "I was totally wrong, I had no female instinct for these things whatsoever," she laughs. "But Gulliver is definitely a Boris type, because he looks like a Russian weightlifter. At four months, he had the average weight of an eight-month-old, and he does a great belting docker's laugh."
• "[Damian and I met working on the play Five Gold Rings], but we didn't get together until a year later, even though neither of us was with anyone else at the time. It was a slow-burn relationship."
• Why was Damian "the one" as they say? "I don't quite know, he just is. Perhaps it's good I can't answer that question -- maybe that's why relationships are happy, because you should never be able to answer that question."

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EVENING STANDARD, APRIL 15, 2008:

• "The terrible jealousies and pangs of desire you feel when you first fall in love. But then as you learn to trust the person, and as you learn to love them, you become far more accepting. Rather than screaming, 'How could you have slept with her?' you're like, 'Well, I had a past.'"
• She wasn't worried about giving birth [to Gulliver] in America. After all, she was booked into the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the cream of Los Angeles hospitals. ... "Oh my God, I was really shocked at the level of care, it's appalling. Because you're paying, you think you'll be getting a superior form of private medicine." It was, she says, ... where only rudeness gets results. "And that's not how I work in life, because I think it's unnecessary. But actually, I realised, when people were barking down this corridor with million-dollar diamond rings on each finger, everybody was running. Someone like me who sits and says [she adopts a demure tone], 'When you have time could you possibly get me a painkiller, I've just passed out,' you don't get anything. ... They couldn't recommend me a drug because, of course, it's all private. ... [Everyone is worried about being sued], so you're supposed to know everything about your own drugs. ... [Even after the birth] I sat in the hospital for five-and-a-half hours before they had enough nurses on duty that my child could be brought to me. Then, when Gulliver didn't breastfeed immediately they were insistent: 'No, we're just going to bottle-feed him, we are taking this child away.' We were told, 'God wants him to feed on the bottle.'"
• During the early part of their stay in LA, older daughter Manon developed a fever. "Damian was working 18 hours a day, and she was so hot she was 105F for five days. I'd sit with this huge pregnant stomach in lukewarm water, take her out, put her in again. For five days I didn't sleep. They won't even do a home call. And when you take children to the doctor's, they will do one test that takes seven days to come back, and charge you $350 for a urine sample. And this was Cedars-Sinai."
• "People are literally dying in America because they can't afford to live. You hear, 'Oh the Americans are so vain, this is why they are so health-conscious.' No it isn't: they can't afford to be ill. If you have the wrong insurance, they will not put you in the ambulance. I think you judge a society by how they treat their poor and old."
• After she had Manon in London, the health worker came to her house four times: weighed the baby, checked her hips and her eyes, and talked to McCrory to check for signs of postnatal depression. "In the States you have to have a paediatric report that costs you $1,000. You're not allowed to leave the hospital without it. It takes two minutes, and the doctor is only doing exactly what our nurses do for free. And that's it, you don't see a doctor again, unless you pay."
• "Gulliver had his jabs and his temperature went up to 104F -- so they took him to the Whittington Hospital and got a consultant on a motorcycle over from Guy's. He was there in 45 minutes. We had a lumbar puncture, a urinary tract test, lungs, everything, on the NHS, all by 3.30pm the same afternoon that we'd taken him in at 11am. And then the next day, the doctor phoned us at home and gave us his mobile number as it was his day off and said if there were any problems to call him."
• In the film [Flashbacks Of A Fool], she plays Craig's mannish aunt with her hair cut short and dyed black. "I based it on Elvis, the later years. I was going to do Sun City 1968, but -- seven months pregnant -- I knew it had to be the Vegas years."
• What does this versatile actress look like as Narcissa? "If I told you that they'd shoot you as you walked away from this building. No I'm not joking. ... It's like working for MI5. When you film, a man comes in with a wand. You do the scene, and as soon as it's finished, it's locked in a cupboard. At first you think: 'Why?' And then you see the eyes of the kids being shown round the set and you think: 'Oh that's why.' Because if it's not nailed down, it's going to disappear."

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THE TIMES, APRIL 16, 2008:

• "[In Flashbacks Of A Fool,] I am playing this rather eccentric gardener that I based on Elvis Presley."
• "Music really influenced me when I was growing up. I did go through a Jimi Hendrix phase. My hair was naturally quite afro, and I wore low-slung jeans with very high heels. Siouxsie and the Banshees had a lot to answer for. I was in a top hat with peacock feathers and thigh-high black boots. I was 17 -- old enough to know better."
• "I play Narcissa Malfoy in the new Harry Potter film. If I told you what I was wearing, I would probably have to kill you; it's a bit like working for MI5."
• "In Charles II [the BBC series], we had a lot of nude scenes. I didn't want to do them. So instead, Joe Wright [the director] and I looked at the original prints and paintings of the time, and talked to various historians. At the time women didn't wear a lot of corsets. They almost wore bed robes, which are very sensual."
• "If you're walking around, basically in your nightie and a great big silk dressing gown, and huge wigs with white powdered faces and little cupid lips, it's a very sexy look. Quite artificial really: it reminded me slightly of a geisha, which I know is sexy, but very restrictive. I had the feeling of having a mask on. I like that -- the mystery of dressing. I like it when women have an air about them."
• "I love the fact that I have a pair of hips and a bit of a chest. My shape changed enormously after pregnancy. Now I am learning to dress a different figure. I have no desire to do battle with my weight."

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THE TELEGRAPH, APRIL 19, 2008:

• "A perfect weekend in London has to start on Friday night, by going to the theatre, the Donmar or the National. It's a cliché for an actor, but I enjoy going as much as possible. ... My husband Damian [Lewis, the actor] is more of a film buff and is teaching me that it's wonderful to see films on the big screen. But I love live performance and have huge admiration for people who can really do it. It's the same with music: I'll play a record and think that I'm not really into country or ragga. But, if it's live and the musicians are good, I'll listen to pretty much anything."
• "In summer, we might get together with friends for a picnic on the Heath. Everybody brings a blanket and one food they like eating. We take footballs and other things we can play. After a glass of Rioja, it's remarkable how many games I can play: I won't be held back. It's boules for the very drunk, tennis for the not so drunk. When we've done that in the past, we've then gone to Kenwood for an evening concert and fireworks. Something light like the Strauss waltzes would be good."
• "I love the English papers on Sunday, which you can never get until Tuesday abroad. I should be reading the business pages, but all I want to read are the pop-y [popular] articles. We don't have lie-ins now - we'll probably be up at 6 o'clock. Damian is a very good cook so he does breakfast in the garden and I get the papers with Manon."
• "I was a real art freak when I was a teenager. When I got my InterRail card I went off and sat in the Uffizi gallery, in Florence, for six days. If I ever have a bit of spare cash, I try to buy art. A friend works at Christie's; I once got to hold a Vermeer and see how it was restored. It's what people create that makes my heart stop."
• "Damian and I have separate interests. I don't care if Liverpool win or lose. Nor could I explain any of the cricket scoring. Damian is very sporty. I watched him play football for England at Old Trafford in a celebrity game against the Rest of the World; I turned the air blue. My grandfather was a boxer so I was used to shouting at the television. We do both love rugby, though. A perfect weekend would be watching Wales win the Grand Slam. My mother, who is Welsh, would be singing her heart out and refusing to speak English for the entire match."
• "In London, I love walking along the South Bank. I always gravitate to the river."
• "We [Damian and I] are both jazz fans. On a really ideal weekend, we'd find Bob Dylan was playing an impromptu concert. It would have to be on a small stage like that -- I couldn't have a large space between me and Bob. Alternatively, I might take Damian to dinner in Paris because you can get there in a couple of hours. We often go away for the weekend. Whenever I used to have time off, I always went abroad. But Damian is introducing me to how beautiful Britain is. His family has a house in the Brecon Beacons, so it's lovely to go there."

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THE INDEPENDENT, MAY 10, 2008:

• If I weren't talking to you right now I'd be ... "In the back of a car driving to the Harry Potter set, except my driver got lost so I'm here on the street with my cigarette, thinking, 'I'm late for work.'"
• A phrase I use too often ... "Would be either 'Sorry, I'm running late,' or, as my little boy is just five months old, 'When did he eat last?'"
• I wish people would take more notice of ... "Litter in the street and general politeness. It is the lack of graciousness that makes me very depressed. People are not considerate of others. They tend not to consider themselves as all living together, but see themselves only as individuals."
• The most surprising thing to happen to me was ... "Finding out that I was pregnant when my first child was six months old. That was genuinely surprising."
• A common misperception of me is ... "That I am tall. That's quite boring, isn't it? Everyone says that I am minute when they see me."
• I am not a politician but ... "If I were in politics I'd make both left and right sit down and make good decisions about national health. It's a huge problem and it is something we all should be part of. Also, I wouldn't do what most politicians do with the media. Everyone thinks that to be a great politician what counts is to come across well in the public eye, and that's not necessarily true. We have had prime ministers in the past who didn't come across well, but they were great prime ministers."
• I'm very good at ... "Eating. I love everything and anything. I really love my food. My favourite thing is artichokes. I am not so much interested in desserts or chocolate, though. I also like to cook with my husband Damian."
• I'm very bad at ... "Stopping eating. Also time management. I always think it takes five minutes to go across London."
• The ideal night out is ... "Dancing somewhere with my husband. African live dance, of course, because I grew up in Africa and I love its music."
• In weak moments I ... "Take myself off and spend some time completely by myself."
• In another life I'd have been ... "A wife and a mother, because that's what I really am. Of course, that's different from what people know me for."
• The best age to be is ... "Always now. Every time, at any point of my life, I think now is always the best age to be."
• In a nutshell, my philosophy is ... "Whoever dares, wins."

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SOURCE MAGAZINE, JUNE 2008:

• "When I was a teenager, I lived in Paris for six years, and every holiday the family would go to Biarritz (right). It’s a wonderfully 'French' resort, stylish and interesting -- the tearooms are full of women you know change their clothes three times a day to match the collar they’ve put on their dog. It’s also one of the safest places in France, as all the gendarmes go there on holiday. The Petit Plage is great for children, and on the Grand Plage there are fantastic fireworks displays. You can catch rugby at the Biarritz Olympique stadium, or watch pelotte, a cross between lacrosse and tennis. It’s very exciting and you’ll often see ambulances carting off members of the crowd who have been hit by an errant ball. Nearby there’s great surfing, or you can catch an old train that rumbles through the foothills of the Pyrenees."

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COUTTS WOMEN, JULY 2008:

• "I've been acting [in Rosmersholm] in the evenings, then I'm home for the night feeds with Gulliver (her eight-month son), then up with Manon at six (her 22-month daughter), and having snoozes in the afternoon. It's like being a nightshift worker, a cab driver in London."
• "Growing up as a family is important to us," she says, which is why she's back in LA again, supporting Lewis, but also auditioning for roles herself this year.
• "There are plenty of big films that are just not to my taste. Like the films that everybody knows are an absolute copy of one that's been done before because they know it will be money and bums on seats. I'm attracted to projects that are ambitious and ambitious for more than just making money."
• Since becoming a mother, another driving force has also crept in when she chooses roles, and that's that they connect with her life in some way. She chose a modern version of Frankenstein for ITV when pregnant for the first time. "I sympathised because, let's face it, when you are pregnant, you never fully know that your child will be okay," she said then.
• "I really wanted to walk on stage and not have to 'act', and the play [Rosmersholm] was interesting and true to life in that way."
• Doing Harry Potter was a treat in so many ways, she says. "It's surreal. These are actors normally playing lead roles and some have four lines here. So it's amazing creativity both on the acting and production fronts. There's this freedom to create which is quite unusual for Britain," she admits.
• While McCrory did the nightshifts recently, Lewis spent his days doing up their Tufnell Park home, climbing ladders and knocking down walls, so much so that Manon thought it was his day job.

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BRITISH AIRWAYS LIFE, SEPTEMBER 2008:

• "Growing up in Africa made me feel part of life and nature. In Europe it’s as if humans are the only things alive on earth. When I was a child, I saw elephants in the Serengeti, knew the names of the snakes and lizards and what to do if I saw a jellyfish or a sea urchin. Africa is a remarkable place and once you’ve lived there you never forget it."
• "Paris is the ideal place to be a teenager. After I’d left school I lived there for a while. You can sit around in coffee bars feeling chic in your black polo neck, reading your Jean-Paul Sartre and puffing on your first Gauloises."
• "You can walk around London with a pink mohican and not faze anyone. I love that laissez-faire attitude. The city doesn’t deserve its reputation for being cold and unfriendly. I’ve had at least 16 London addresses from Brixton to Kensington, Kentish Town to Chalk Farm and I’ve always felt welcome."
• "Opera in Italy is like one big singalong. I experienced it for the first time in Milan and it was so relaxed. Everyone had a chat and ate their sandwiches through the boring parts and then leapt up and cheered when it got dramatic. I could get obsessed with opera if it was always like that."
• "Tourists pay an extortionate amount for pizza in Venice. I spent three months there when I was filming The Count of Monte Cristo and by the end of the shoot I was treated like a Venetian. Suddenly my meals were half the price they were when I had arrived a month earlier."
• "It’s amazing that a place like Los Angeles even exists. It’s built on a desert prone to floods, fires and earthquakes. We live there for six months of the year and I love that my kids can spend their days on the beach and in the sun. I find LA strange, artificial and fascinating all at the same time."
• "What man has made really takes my breath away. I fully appreciate the beauty of mountains and the sea but somewhere like St Peter’s in Rome fills me with awe. A Caravaggio will always inspire me more than a sunset any day."

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SOURCE MAGAZINE, JULY 2009:

• Can't leave home without: "Well, obviously shoes! I am the lightest traveller in the world. I don't even carry a bag if I can help it. I'm blind as a bat and often leave home without my specs, my phone and my keys. Wherever I go, I like to be there 100 percent. There's nothing worse than people taking phone calls during lunch or whatever."
• Favourite journey: "Anywhere my family is waiting for me. As a diplomat's daughter I grew up all over the world, and for the past two years my husband Damian and I have split our lives -- spending half the year living in London and the other half in L.A. Everything is family for me and it is lovely to come home to where they are."
• Most relaxing place to go: "Wales. It's God's country. Damian's family has a working farm in the Brecon Beacons and my family live in South Wales. The whole world stops when we go to Wales. We just putter about and relax, and it's idyllic."
• Most romantic destination: "I would love to go to Cuba with Damian, because apart from the beauty I love the music. We'd dance in the streets of Havana and go to the Hotel Nacional for mojitos. Our children would be very happy staying with my family in Wales."
• Best childhood holiday memory: "We were living in Paris when our father and mother drove me and my brother and sister to see the lighthouse at Biarritz. My father grew up in the inner-city Glasgow and had visited Biarritz when he was young. He had stood at the lighthouse and said that if he could ever bring his children there, it would be wonderful. I only realised then that my father had once been a child, too. We went there five years running."
• Places still to go: "I'd love to go to Brazil at carnival time in Rio de Janeiro, but all of South America is on my list. Living in L.A., we've met so many South Americans and I'd like to see their real cultures, not the watered-down North American versions."
• The place I'll never forget: "London is the most exotic place in my life. I was born there, but I grew up in Norway, Nigeria, Camaroon, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Paris and Madagascar, so first came to the city aged 18. I have always found it a most romantic place, full of diversity, energy and individuality. I love the laissez-faire attitude."

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THE SCOTSMAN, JULY 11, 2009:

• "My own parents were very un-neurotic, so I never thought that I had to change enormously in order to become a parent. Also, my children aren't very neurotic, and you don't choose the personalities of the kids you have."
• "I think they definitely have personalities coming through pretty early on and both my children are very happy creatures. Actually, and I think this is probably true of all children their age, you think you're going to take them to do this or that, and you only get as far as the front step because they'll see a ladybird or want to look at a leaf and then they potter around the corner and see a spider. Children have their own elongated time."
• "If only you could get someone to cook for you, dress you in the morning, and wash you at night and put you to bed, then you, too, could have this relaxed lifestyle! Childhood has definitely been invented, hasn't it? I think that's because people had children later and we appreciate and cherish childhood a lot more. And also, people have a lot more time, since I don't have to hand wash our clothes, I don't have to do all the things that our parents had to do – well, not our parents but definitely our grandmothers."
• "I am the staff! And Manon enjoys pottering around doing things with me. I think it's important for kids to see and understand that when you want a meal you have to cook it and you wash up and not everything is just presented to you in life. There are a lot of little lessons that can be taught around the home without sitting a child down and boring them to death with your philosophy of life!"
• Of all the spots she and her family lived in during her childhood, which haunts her most vividly? "Tanzania! It is so beautiful. I still remember seeing the herds of elephants and wildebeests and giraffes. I want to take my children there, if we can afford it, but because they're so young, I'd wait to take them when they'll remember it and will be incredibly grateful to us, and not waste our money now! Also, the Tanzanians are wonderful people. Considering they're living in a country with such hardship, they have an amazing optimistic outlook and happiness. Whereas here we have far more and we're grumbling and miserable."
• Some revelations on how Helen and Damian chose their children's names: Manon, stress on the first syllable, is Welsh, in honour of her mum and Lewis's dad. "Gulliver came about because Damian was working with an actor who was in Gulliver's Travels and we both really liked the name. When we phoned people up there was a stunned silence on the end of all the calls. But it suits him, because he is a giant amongst men already. He's also got the name Cameron, from my father's mother's side, to get the Scottish in, because he doesn't have McCrory. Gulliver Cameron Lewis sounds like a Victorian explorer or something. I think it's a great name."
• "Don't say anything against it [London] because I'm in love with London, particularly because I've been away for a year [while Damian filmed the American television series, Life]. I think change is good because it teaches you that it's nothing to be frightened of. If you can do that with children when they're young, and in a safe environment, that means it's something they look forward to. I've never seen moving around a lot as a disadvantage because you're constantly going to be in flux, whether you're living in the same village or not."
• "One of the lovely things about LA was having time to sit of an evening and read. I love reading. And I always read around a part that I'm playing, which is fun, but it was lovely reading for no other reason than enjoyment. I read F Scott Fitzgerald, and I'd always wanted to read a lot of Dostoyevsky. "Having said that, when you go to those old masters you realise that the reason they're masters is because they're accessible. That actually, The Idiot is very funny and a real page turner and that's why it's lasted. If it was just incredibly turgid and dense only four academics would have read it, and I'm not an academic."
• "The children shouldn't be alarmed by this, but there is no plan whatsoever [about where we will live and work as they grow older]. It's likely we'll raise them in Britain, because of family. One of the exciting things about going to Los Angeles was that it's a great adventure, and especially when you're newly married with two young kids, you feel 'We can do anything now,' because you suddenly realise that you're a unit and that you have everything you want. As soon as you got off the plane and went to the hotel, you're there. It doesn't matter if you've unpacked; your husband's there, your kids are there, that's it. That's amazingly freeing and also, very romantic, when you've just got married; it's a huge adventure."
• "LA was the most alien culture I'd ever lived in. I don't want my daughter to grow up in a city where looking sexy is so important. I had friends whose kids were seven and eight, wanting to go on diets. That was never part of my childhood and as a feminist I would never want that to be part of my little daughter's. People always say, 'Isn't she pretty?,' to a girl, and I'm like, 'Yes, she's very clever; she runs very fast'. Luckily they have a mother who [demonstrates] it's obviously not that important what you look like! Listen, I may have brushed my hair today, but it's because it's Friday and I'm going out tonight and I know I'm going to have my photo done. I'm very sloppy around the house. In LA, wearing Uggs was dressing up. I am so low-maintenance at the best of times but that really suited me to a tee. But you also show by example, don't you? You can't say to your child it really doesn't matter and then be neurotic."
• "I fall in love with my characters. ... I don't select the scenes; I don't select the way 'the character is] going to be portrayed. It's always about serving the piece or serving the director. You have your script and that's your starting and ending point. That's the way I work. I was alarmed when I used to find actors who'd say, 'I want to change that line, I think my character wouldn't say that.' You think, 'Well, she clearly f***ing does because it's on page 17! You know your character better than the writer? I don't know what Pinter's going to think about this!' I always thought if you didn't understand why you said that line, go away and work it out. That's the job."

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THE TIMES, JULY 12, 2009:

• "I went from countries where we had servants to the local school in Bletchley. I'm just as happy to eat foie gras as a baked potato. I don't see those differences. I have no ambition for things and fame. Because of my father's job, I saw highly responsible people running countries, and I saw that publicity held them back, created unhappiness in the family, a stumbling block within relationships. It was never something I wanted. I don't understand that desire. Some actors like universal love, rather than just being loved by one person in the quietness of the house, which is what I've always been interested in."
• "My acting hasn't got anything to do with confidence. I did a reading last night of Auden for the British Library, and I found it terrifying. I can walk across a stage in a pair of suspenders... because it's not me. Real confidence is standing up as yourself."

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BRITISH AIRWAYS HIGH LIFE, MARCH 2010:

• My favourite journey is anywhere where my family is waiting for me. As a diplomat’s daughter, I grew up all over the place and for the past two years Damian [husband, actor Damian Lewis] and I have spent half the year living in London and the other in Los Angeles. Family is everything to me and it is lovely to come home to where they are.
• London is the place I’ll never forget. I was born here but I grew up in Norway, Nigeria, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Paris and Madagascar. I came back to London when I was 18 and have since found it a most romantic and exotic place full of diversity and energy.
• My best childhood holiday memory is when we were living in Paris and our father and mother drove my brother, sister and I to Biarritz to see a lighthouse. My father, who grew up as an inner city boy in Glasgow, had been on an exchange programme to Biarritz when he was young. He’d stood at the foot of this lighthouse and said that if he could ever take his children there, that would be truly wonderful. We went there five years running.
• The most relaxing place for me is Wales. It’s God’s country. Damian’s family has a working farm in the Brecon Beacons and my family live in South Wales. The whole world stops when we go to Wales. We just potter about and relax – it’s idyllic. My most romantic destination is Cuba because, apart from the beauty, I adore the music. My husband and I love to dance in the streets of Havana, drink mojitos and go to the Hotel Nacional for cocktails. We’d only go for a week, while our children would be very happy with my family in South Wales.
• I am the lightest traveller in the world. I don’t even carry a bag if I can help it. My travel extravagance is to be able to travel with just hand luggage. I tend to pack my things in boxes and get them sent to me. It is an extravagance but travelling light adds to the quality of the adventure.

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THE SUNDAY TIMES HOME MAGAZINE, MAY 16, 2010:

• "Between the ages of six and nine, in the mid-1970s, I lived at 86 Haile Selassie Road in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. My father worked for the Foreign Office and was posted there from Cameroon, which is practically 100% humidity, so we arrived mouldy with boils into the dry heat, which was beautiful."
• "The house was two storeys, painted white, with a horseshoe gravel drive. We never went into the right side of the garden: that was where the army ants lived. On the left were trees that we climbed; my father built a castle out of packing boxes and sprayed it silver."
• "A monitor lizard lived in the back garden; we'd lie on the ground and look at its eyes. We had monkeys at the front and love birds in the roof that hopped all over the lawn in the morning."
• "Joseph, our cook, lived in a compound at the back with Bahari, his son. Bahari was a fantastic football player because he walked with a hobbled gait, which meant that, when he was dribbling, you never knew which way he would go. I loved sports, so Bahari and I played football all day. Apende, our ayah [nanny], seemed 1,000 years old, but my God she could move. One day, there was a snake in the kitchen. She ran in and whacked the shit out of it. My mum said: 'Is it poisonous?' Apende said: 'We kill first, ask later.'"
• "Behind the house was bush. Once, I stole a machete and went off with my brother, Jonny, and his friend for an adventure -- and we accidentally cut a beehive in half. I ran, screaming, back to the house, with bees chasing us. I was fine, my brother had 10 stings, but his friend had dozens. It was made all right: we got to go to the nearby garage to have ice cream. There was ice cream in Dar about every four months."
• "The house had an enormous veranda and, with the french windows open, my parents would sit with friends and play the theme music from Un Homme et une femme, while my friend Nicky and I rollerskated back and forth. I remember the smell of Rive Gauche, my mum with a beehive and silk kaftan, and my dad in a batik shirt."
• "Home was just somewhere we slept. I shared a room with Jonny, who's two years younger. It was plain white, with mosquito nets; our parents would sing us lullabies. Then my father would say, 'Sleep tight. Don't get out of bed, you don't want to touch the snakes on the floor.' In the mornings, we went to the international school. For some reason, we trailed toilet rolls out the back of the school bus, trying to get cars to crash."
• "In front of us was Oyster Bay, but we went swimming at the yacht club instead: it had a coral reef, so you weren't too worried about sharks."
• "It sounds rather colonial, but it was basically an upmarket burger joint. Nicky and I had a whole world down among the sea urchins: we had a king and queen sea urchin, and, on our last day in Tanzania, I vividly remember bowing to them."
• "We also went riding at the Sunny Horse Ranch. It was run by Major Sparrow, who taught us to ride like members of the Household Cavalry. You'd start off on a tiny Shetland pony called Georgie Harrison, which had mange, so it was completely bald apart from a couple of tufts."
• "It was an amazing childhood. There was a wildness about it. I was shocked when we came to Britain when my mum was pregnant with my sister. I was confused that children wanted to be adults, to wear make-up and smoke. My idea of naughtiness was to go up onto cliffs and practise our swallow dives. I had no interest in smoking, boys and hair. I'm a bit like that now! I don't sit and think, 'Do I want a straighter nose?' I'm sure that's because of Africa."

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THE GUARDIAN, JUNE 1, 2010:

• Her mother always worked. She was a physiotherapist when she married McCrory's father, a diplomat. And when his work took the family to Africa, she made other employment for herself. "She set up a library, she taught English, she travelled around Tanzania vaccinating children. She was an incredibly good role model for me."
• "People talk about settling down; there's nothing settling down about it, love. We've moved country three times, we've sold two houses, bought a house, done about seven films, a series, four plays, had two kids. I'd just like the dust to settle."
• "Each job is taking me away from my children, so I have to really believe that what that person has to say is relevant and interesting and entertaining."
• Acting is a kind of compulsion for her. It comes from her father, she says. "There is a pride in his family in being the best storyteller, in looking at life and making little observations about it, to try and find some meaning, or just for the fun of it." Acting appeals for the same reasons. "What interests me about life most is people, and the why of the world. That's what theatre looks at: it examines life, and gives it a cohesiveness that life doesn't have."

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WHAT'S ON STAGE, JUNE 17, 2010:

• "I was at boarding school, and my drama teacher recommended Drama Centre and I auditioned and they looked at me and said 'you must be joking' -- I was murdering Juliet's 'Gallop apace' speech, kicking it to death, it lay limp at my feet. They looked at me and said 'tell me what it was like when you first fell in love' and I said 'I don't think I have really', and they said 'well don't waste our time -- why did you choose that speech?!' I just looked at them and thought 'oh, do I have to think about this?' And I went to the other drama schools and they were very nice and offered me places, but I really wanted to go to Drama Centre because they were so direct and I really liked that. So the next year I auditioned and I was put on the waiting list and I auditioned for a few other drama schools who again offered me places. But I refused them saying I was waiting to see if I got into Drama Centre and told Drama Centre that I had done this and than a few days later I got a letter back saying 'see you in September'. And I spent three very important years there."
• "I got my first big break under Richard Eyre at the National, but was also doing my first jobs for television with the likes of Michael Gambon, Billie Whitelaw and Bill Owen. It's great to sit there and watch these people and find out what they're doing. Why are they still working at 75? I want to carry on as long as they have if I can -- hobbling on to the stage of the Haymarket on my zimmer frame."

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