I knew my own mother had been in the theater for a while and had taught children, because she used to teach me the pieces that she taught them, but she did much more than that.

I have a few homes. I have my family home in Adelaide where my parents and my brothers and sisters are, and I have a few friends and my place where I used to live in Sydney, and then my husband and our family in London, so... I'm from everywhere and nowhere.

In my experience (I am the lone father of an eight-year-old boy who lost his mother when he was one year old), parenting is the most difficult of all jobs: forget your chief executives, editors, prime ministers and the like - parenting is far more challenging.

It was always about being first, about winning. There were no prizes for second place. My mother and father said, 'Do whatever you want, as long as you're the best at it.'