At home, growing up, we weren't really poor. We had everything we needed, we just didn't have what we wanted.

It seems very safe to me to be surrounded by green growing things and water.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.

There's always a part of your nation's history that you haven't been told that... has a powerful impact on how you yourself may behave and may believe.

I feel really lucky to have had 'War and Peace' as my first big telly job. I was playing this incredible character, and we were shooting in Catherine the Great's palace near St. Petersburg in the winter, when the river was frozen. It was a dream. I still can't believe it. I wanted to soak up every last minute.

We need the right attitude and the right motivation - that can decide the match above everything else.

I never have such luxury of leisure time. But whenever I get some time, I catch up on watching movies, keep going to theatre to watch plays, gigs of my actor friends.

I'll be honest with you: before I heard Nicki rapping, I probably wouldn't have thought to rap myself. Just to see a female doing it and being in there with the guys, it was motivation.