Emily Watson quotes:

I think so, Silence of the Lambs was a great, suspenseful thriller and I would expect Red Dragon to be similar. And I think it's very character driven.

When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.

I am married to the most amazing, generous and beautiful human being and it has been hard on him because from the outside if you look at it it's just all about me.

My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate, I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting, subtle relationship.

In my early career I was like a goldfish. Rejection didn't affect me; I'd just forget how bad it was and keep going back for more.

I mean, I have done scenes with animals, with owls, with bats, with cats, with special effects, with thespians, in the freezing cold, in the pouring rain, boiling hot; I've done press with every syndication, every country; I've done interviews with people dressed up as cows - there's honestly nothing that's gonna intimidate me!

And it is very sexy as well: somebody says I'm taking you on a surprise date, you don't know where you are going and you can't see and then you put your hand out and there is a tiger. Amazing.

My husband. He keeps me grounded. If I were in the world on my own, it would all be much more seductive. But I'm in a relationship that has nothing to do with the film world.

I have to be a lot more calculating because I'm a very private person. I actually really struggle with the attention; I'm generally a pretty shy kind of a person. So it's tough figuring out how to manage it. But there are ways of managing it, and you just have to be smart.

During Breaking The Waves, I was on my own in a hotel room. I think I would have been impossible to live with. When you go home, you have to pretend to be the person you are at home.

The film Punch - Drunk Love is how you see the world when you're in love. You don't see somebody's psychological baggage necessarily, you see the person walking out of the light.

Believing in God is a very intense inner struggle of mine. It's something I worry about a lot, but which I don't have the answer to.

I was a pretentious child. I grew up without a television. I read a lot of books and I loved Shakespeare. Still do.

I don't know what makes a marriage work. My husband and I don't have it right at all; it's very tough on him. From the outside it looks like it's all about me - I have a glorious career and he doesn't.

When I did get home this last time, we had all these plans to go out. And then we hardly stepped outside because the time together seemed too precious.

Please, please, please - I would love to do some comedy. Once you have a reputation for one thing - in my case, crying and dying - you are typecast.

I've always been creative, I think.

I grew up without a television. It meant that I read lots of books and entertained myself.

It's a whole different kind of anxiety. But the great thing about doing a theatre job is that once the ball starts rolling you just have to go with it, it's inexorable.

I was a normal, rather dutiful child. I didn't even rebel as a teenager.

Friends always say you don't realise how robust your baby is until you drop it.

You have to play the logic of a character.

It's an incredible privilege for an actor to look into the camera. It's like looking right into the heart of the film, and you can't take that lightly.

I don't think I will be less good because there's less pressure on me.

As actors, we went where we wanted to, and the camera followed us: it was like having another person in the room. There was no formal structure to the process. It was very liberating.