Lesley Manville

There isn't a spare minute in the day. I have spent my life doing everything. I work. I go home. I do the shopping. I cook. Then there's the laundry and the dog. Most of my life, I have been a working mother. And even when I wasn't, I still did it all.

Corinne Bailey Rae I listen to a lot, and I'll hear Desert Island Discs and quickly write down the name of a song, and it will open up a new area of music for me. I discovered an Argentinian guitarist, Jose Luis Bieito, on Classic FM.

With learning lines, before I had Alfie, I'd put it off and think, 'Oh, I'll just have a glass of wine and then do it later,' but when you've finally got a child to bed and you know you've only got an hour, then you achieve so much.

Do I sometimes hope I wake up in the morning and people are like, 'What's wrong with her? She looks emaciated.' Of course I would love that. I'm such a clothes whore, I would love the opportunity to be a hanger. But I think I'm more confident than I've ever felt in my life.

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.