If I wasn't an actress, I'd like to cook. I'm pretty obsessed by it. Rome was great in that sense, going to amazing cookery bookshops. No wonder their food is good because the quality and wide range of their produce is so good. It's not fair, really.

I love cooking. People seem to enjoy my food, but I absolutely love it. I'm one of those people who will buy a cookery book and take it to bed and read it.

Sometimes Italian fashion, especially in the summer, is bright and gaudy and tarty, so I'd be buying these bright pink and bright orange things, and when I got home, I'd just go, 'What was I thinking? I can't wear this!'

My wedding preparations were done. My wedding outfit was ready. I had even bought my jewellery, and the cards were also printed. It is very sad that I had to call off my marriage one month prior to the actual date.

I think a big part of marriage is not going anywhere on those days you feel you really want to. It's like in the Barrier Islands. If you want to stay together, don't leave. I think just culturally - in the media, in movies, in books - we're trained to divorce when that first blush of sexual longing starts to fade. That's just where marriage starts.

My political awakening, if I can be as grand as to call it that, was all about what was happening around me. It wasn't some romantic, patriotic vision of Scotland going back to what it had been 300 years previously.

What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.