Anna Friel Quotations

People became more interested in my love life than in me, and that has a certain effect. You start to feel very empty and worth nothing, you start to become a piece in a board game you never wanted to play.

For me personally, everything is on a kiss.

I play a character every day of my life, and I don't want to play a character as myself. They can judge me as an actress, not as a person. I'm not a spokeswoman for Anna.

I've been onstage once for one performance with four days' rehearsal.

Being a mother gives you an incredible feeling of empowerment, you think if I can go through such pain and that level of sleep and still operate and not be grumpy you can do anything. It can be quite scary, you can't function your brain, forget your vocabulary.

I've always chosen incredibly different roles and things that are quite offbeat. That way you're not limited.

And the most important thing - apart from telling a good, believable story, and being a true character - is to be someone the audience will care about, even if you're playing a murderer or rapist.

I have the most lovely, healthy bouncing baby, she was all very compact and the right size.

I look at being an actress as being like a mummy: You're bandaged up and preserved as soon as you start making other people money.

David is 13 years my senior and has much more experience.

For Closer, we've had five weeks. You go into every single word because it's very, very concentrated dialogue.

I want more children but for the next three years I want to act.

It's really important to draw the line on what we do as actors.

Onstage, there's no hiding; you either can or can't act. There's no second take.

We will spend more time in America, we're going to get a place in LA as hotels aren't great for the baby.

As long as she is talented enough and passionate about doing it herself then I will be happy and support her. I think I will be sensible - my parents said I could only do it if I got my education and so I had something to fall back on.

Now learning a bit more about footballers I think what they need to do well, is someone who really wants to stay in the background and just be a strong support.

The doctors say it dates back to a film where I had these huge prosthetic breasts because my character was breast-feeding. The weight of them, and of the baby, did my back in.

Well it's hard to bracket it like that because everyone always thinks you either go to America and you come back, fail or succeed, but it doesn't work like that.

You can see when an actor gets bored: Their eyes go dead. I promised myself I'd never let that happen. If it does, I'll go and live on a desert island for a year.

He has a week of games up in Scotland and we go every year,

He got really attached to her, she sat on his knee and he sang along to her.

Going back to the stage to do Lulu was really terrifying as it was such a hard part,

I also like the fact that the character isn't a typical footballer's wife, she doesn't need the bling and being at the forefront of everything.

Last month I spent six months in New York working with Barry Levinson but I didn't want to stay there, I could have but I wanted to come home.

The pictures came out and everyone was going: ?Oh my God, she only had her baby three days ago and look at her!'

Eternity to a child offers goodness, and eternal life to a man is essentially corrupting because it involves a certain amount of vanity to embrace it.

I'm in a really good place. I used to be a right worrier, but being in a settled relationship has made a massive difference. I was on my own for three years before meeting David. I'm very happy with him, he's a fantastic man. But you never know what's around the corner, so you just hope for the best.

When you're given something new, it's always exciting 'cause you're the first one to do it. You're not having to live up to any expectations, or be compared to anyone who's ever done it before.

In Hollywood I got work but not the right work until Pushing Daisies. Every girl in LA wanted the part of Chuck. I was terrified - I didn't know if I could be funny.

I was so completely anxious before I had a child, but now my biggest worry is something happening to her, so anything other than that I can handle. That's not to say I'm calm, because that would be b****cks! I wish it were the case, but it's getting better as I get older.

My whole family is quite petite, so I have good genes on my side. But I find it quite tiresome that we have to keep talking about sizes and how much weight we can lose.

I was just disciplined. I knew I had to get back into shape after six weeks for the film Goal II, but I cheated in the end - I wore a corset. I loved my pregnancy, I blossomed. I felt goddess-like and very secure. I found it comforting to have a little thing growing inside me, and very calming.

I'd like to put the record straight about that. I've been labelled an irresponsible role model for young mothers, but none of it is true. I couldn't even walk for two weeks after the birth, let alone exercise. I ate very healthily all the way through my pregnancy and afterwards. I didn't do anything extreme.

There were reports of me using fat-sucking machines and all sorts of silliness. All I did was walk a lot and breast-feed. I've never been on a strict diet. I just don't overeat, and I don't eat if I'm not hungry.

Eating at home is important for us, because we eat out so much when we're away. When I'm at home I cook a lot and we eat pretty healthily. I'm not a massive vegetable fan - I've got better since I discovered how to undercook them.

If oil exploration can threaten a place as beautiful and meaningful as Virunga, where next?

But Americans find me bizarre and always ask me why I eat so many carbs. I tell them I don't get full otherwise.

Any scene that involves stripping off is hell. You just know it's going to take a day or more to get it right. It never gets any better and it's always uncomfortable, and all you can do is grin and bare it. I just pray it's never gratuitous and that it doesn't look so fake that all you hear in the audience is, 'Well, that's not really her, is it?'

I've never been onstage in my life.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

When I'm working, it's those actors (you know who you are) who sit around moaning that their trailer isn't big enough, or how bad their facilities are. I can't be doing with any of that, I just like to get on with it.

I've been on sets where the turnaround is so fast and the budget so small that the actors have been asked to speed things up and save money by changing in the public toilets. There's no room for vanity at times like that. It's the best way: get on with it!

These women need to feel that we're all aware of what they may be going through, to give them the confidence to speak out.

It's so important to raise awareness of this problem that continues to affect 1 in 4 women at some point in their lifetime, regardless of career, wealth or background.

I've got the best lead man, I really love my lead man.

When I was younger I thought I'd meet the man of my dreams, get married and have a child, but it all went higgledy-piggledy. Never say never, though...

I've only just started to think that I can make a career out of this. At the end of my time in Brookside, I wondered if I'd ever work again.

I've never been to a live match but now having made this film I'm going to - I'm going to Real Madrid so it'll be done with a bang!

It's fantastic, she's so cute, ... And David and I have talked about what roles to take so that one of us is always with her. It's great to be breastfeeding at the moment because I can take her anywhere. She's very portable - and very portly. She loves her grub - like her mum!

It's placing your words carefully, and keeping everything nice, kind of hidden behind a smile. People don't want to see your insecurities here.