"I think if you're trying to be funny, sometimes you're bending a piece of metal in a direction it doesn't want to go. And sometimes comedy just needs to find itself."
"Radio listeners often have a very fertile imagination when it comes to body shape."
"I don't ever want to do stuff just for the sake of it."
"Laughing and crying are very similar. They're an extreme response to life. You see it in children who start laughing hysterically."
"I'm an actor, and I'm supposed to reflect real people."
"I'm quite an odd little part of the Venn diagram. I'm not a movie star and beautiful in that way. I do an odd thing that's funny and sad, and my face and my old body can take that."
"I cannot step into any day without help. I have a fantastically engaged husband who is very present for his children and our family life. We've got a brilliant nanny, other help from parents-in-law, godparents, friends. Also, I've had incredible women around me in the business."
"I know women at work who don't talk about having a baby because they don't want to upset the apple cart, but unless people know what the problems are, why should they engage with it?"
"I always said there's no way I'd work in America because I'm too weird and I'm too old, but somehow it's happened."
"Families are families. We've all got them, more or less, and we all know what it's like to be bullied by another generation."
"You step over the threshold of your parents' home, and you're instantly transported back to your childhood. It's like time travel. You revert at once to a place of arrested development."
"Families always stay the same, but they always provide more stories."
"I try not to look any further ahead than the next cup of tea. You never know if that cuppa will come or not, do you?"
"A lot of middle-aged women are children still trying to find their way."
"I feel like a 16-year-old trapped inside a dead woman's body."
"Dad was a retired chemist who, in his 60s, fathered and fed me and my two sisters while Mum worked as a secretary. He made us curries, Chinese meals and strange concoctions. He was often unsuccessful."
"In theatre, there's no time for a proper meal."
"I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and... actually, it is fine.'"
"I've long thought that for my last meal on earth I will be perfectly happy with a granary loaf toastie with melted crunchy peanut butter and banana."
"Carelessness makes me cross. And unkindness."
"I think comedy stems from being honest, often painfully so. I hope I can achieve that perspective in my own life and also have fun."
"Kids have a great sense of humour. If you don't, you're going to miss out."
"I suppose I flee to life. I'm most interested when conversations become difficult."
"I was a cleaner while at university. The job wasn't bad, but I was amazed by how badly cleaners are treated - how disrespected they are by the people they work for."
"Writers have to be very careful and discerning because so much of the machine is out of their control."
