Anne-Marie Duff

I was very lucky in that my parents were very broad-minded. Because they had come from another country and hadn't been able to fulfill their dreams, they wanted me to be more of myself, if you know what I mean. ”

That's the trouble with the suburbs: it's not a city, so you're not anonymous, and it's not a small town, so that people really care about you, but everybody kind of knows each other's business, so you're very judged. ”

The life of an actor is very random. It can be exhilarating but terrifying - you do wonder day to day where the next job will come from. Some of my friends are very talented people, but you see them out of work - which can be tough. If you wanted that kind of security, though, I guess you wouldn't be an actor in the first place. ”

The level of sacrifice in the world of dancing is incredibly intense, that work ethic if nothing else - get up, go to class, rehearsal, performance, get up, go to class - that's your life, and it's like that for a finite time, usually. ”

I think creative people need to do a bit of, you know, tuning into every radio station - you just do, otherwise you don't know much about other people. You kind of have to learn a bit about yourself so you can work out how we all behave and why we do the things we do. ”

Never trust a man who doesn't like Elvis. ”

When I started drama school, theatre was the main draw. I never had any movie star notions. Not that there were family ties to the theatre, either. ”

I'm not a great beauty. That's not me. ”

People can be a bit flagrant when they're having an affair. Most of the time, there's an element of it where they want to be discovered because they're in crisis. They need the boil to be burst, in some way, for a resolution. ”

I suppose it's whether you want to be a famous person, or whether you want to be an actor. You have to decide what your priorities are. Great actor, huge star. Sometimes, the two walk hand in hand. Most of the time, they don't. ”