When I very first started out, I had that arrogance of youth.

Everyone knows in the industry that when these great roles come up, every two years, there's a huge number of people up for them. I'm not one of those top five females that can personally finance any film.

The highest pay cheque my mother ever received funded the building of a nursery school in Shepherd's Bush - the school cost well over three times the money she donated to the making of the film 'The Palestinian.' Unsurprisingly this always goes unmentioned in the press.

OK, I wasn't as successful as, say, Julia Roberts, but I'd spent years in a very respectable career, some big American films but a host of other smaller, really exciting, maybe experimental films, being paid rubbish but working with fine people, that was what I thought I was known for.

Some people aren't touchy-feely, but I grew up in a family where you'd walk into the family room and there'd be five people on the couch with an arm here, an arm there, everyone scratching and taking turns.

I have differences of opinion within my own family, an Irish Catholic family. So, I do respect those that disagree.

Our contemporary society is experimenting with the diminishment of caregivers for children. Some children are raised through crucial stages of life by only one person. This one person, who strives to give the best, may be overwhelmed, busy, trying to raise many children. And even in homes with two parents, many children are essentially alone.

Women have always ruled my life, be it my mother, my wife, my assistant, or my daughter, so I don't really fight with them. I relinquished control years ago.