Saffron Burrows

Saffron: When I was younger, I was more in a hurry to get somewhere. I was very aware of mortality. In the last couple of years, I've felt less pressured that way: I've been very much in the present. I feel very peaceful about where I am. I love working, but I don't want that to be my only sense of identity.

Saffron: Getting sacked by Woody Allen was a low point. But he wrote a very sweet letter, saying that - are you ready for this? - I had 'a purity the camera couldn't hide!

Saffron: We're all influenced and partly formed by where we come from, whether its Clacton or Chile.

Saffron: Location work has its charms, and can seem glamorous on the outside, but I think living at home and having the stability of a home life once you've finished work is very underrated!

Saffron: I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with an audience where you immediately hear their reaction, or feel them, whether they're with you.

Saffron: I don't find sex on its own that interesting in a film but I find the two, when they're interwoven, to be interesting.

Saffron: You've got to keep your principles - I want a career of some longevity. I'm really interested in women's rights, that may sound unappealingly feminist, but I am.

Saffron: And there's the whole lie about women's bodies that makes me angry. I barely met anyone who wasn't on some kind of strange ingestion of coffee and cigarettes and, invariably, cocaine, or something. A lot of that was about being very skinny, and for some people that has a lasting effect.

Saffron: I like that sensation of the years passing, and then of being able to look back, almost as if it were someone in a different cycle of their life.

Saffron: (on the world of modeling) It's only when you get far away from it that you begin to see things you couldn't at the time. Just the idea that that world is deeply troubling and corrupting and, of course, full of glitter.

Saffron: (on being a celebrity in Hollywood) You suddenly realize the way the system works there. It's formulaic, it's also incredibly powerful, and it can affect your life in quite a big way.

Saffron: I like being in love, but loving is what is crucial to me. Loving is the reason to live.

Saffron: When your life is as precious as all our lives are, then it needs to be kept precious and looked after and treated well. And that is not something we should be sharing with a wider audience.

Saffron: (on the birth of her step-brother) I was on the cusp of womanhood, so it was both visceral and personally significant.

Saffron: I don't think who I sleep with is of any interest to anyone. I have a beautiful life, and it is precious and it is private. I am terribly happy. That is all.