"I've loved not being looked at so much since dyeing my hair dark for my part in Resident Evil: Apocalypse. With my normal blondey- brown colour, I get stared at so much, so I feel quieter, more low- key. It's like being undercover, as even friends of mine haven't recognised me. It was quite difficult to get used to. I would see a picture of someone blonde in a Polaroid or shop window and think: "Don't I look brilliant?" But then it wouldn't be me. But it does mean that I can wear brighter colours, as well as brighter lipsticks than usual. I've just done a shoot where I was wearing bright red lipstick - although that did feel a bit Eighties and weird, as if I were a Robert Palmer extra."

“Me and my brother used to spend a lot of time at music festivals, running away from skinheads. Then my brother became a skinhead... I used to get excruciatingly, mind-numbingly dull guitar lessons from my father: tonic, subdominant, dominant. Yeah, but how do I play it? Tonic, subdominant, mediant. This is a seventh. Great, how do I play it?”

“No. You always feel very much alone. Everyone gets fractional about who's in the VIP bit, and you think about what's going on outside it. You can never hear anything or have a proper discussion... I prefer groups of six people, max.”

“I really enjoy writing. Much more than other people enjoy reading it. What do I write? Nonsense. Diary stuff - when I want to have a conversation but need to clarify my thoughts first.”

“I went out the other night for the first time in ages, just because I'd been so busy. As I came out of the cinema, I ran down the street to get cigarettes, and 30 guys followed me with cameras and shouted at me. It's all so strange. It's not a life I really live or understand.”

“I'm reading Our Ecstatic Days, by Steve Erickson. It's an extraordinary journey and the most exciting thing I've found since The Master and Margarita, which I've read about 20 times. I like being taken away somewhere by a book.”

“In Hollywood, women hate each other. Everyone is so bitchy and they don't want younger actresses coming in and taking their roles. You only have to look at what it's done to Kate Beckinsale. She used be cool. Now I've heard she's got a clause in her contract saying that she can't be filmed bending over at more than a 45-degree angle because her boob implants slide up onto her collar bone.”