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.
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.
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.
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.
For me personally, everything is on a kiss.
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.
I got dumped by my boyfriend about two years ago. He went off with this other girl, but rather than allow me to just get on with what I was doing, it was on the front cover of every paper. Then there was this whole thing with him and this new girl... . Oh, it was just awful.
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.
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 want more children but for the next three years I want to act.
I've always chosen incredibly different roles and things that are quite offbeat. That way you're not limited.
I've been onstage once for one performance with four days' rehearsal.
I've never been onstage in my life.
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!
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.
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.
It's really important to draw the line on what we do as actors.
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.
My family are not really sports fans and neither is my boyfriend so I guess I'd never really been exposed to it.
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.
Onstage, there's no hiding; you either can or can't act. There's no second take.
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.
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.
We will spend more time in America, we're going to get a place in LA as hotels aren't great for the baby.
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.
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 get very enticed by and mixed up with the film world, and I don't want 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.
Once dated singer, Robbie Williams.
Anna can be seen in a Pantene Ice Shine advertisement.
She co-starred as 'Lady Claire' in the movie Timeline with Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor and Gerard Butler.
Anna currently resides in Windsor and Clerkenwell, London.
Anna: "Some producer suddenly grabbed my doughnut out of my hand. Then he said, 'Anna, you really shouldn't be doing that'. He said, 'your tummy's not looking right on screen'. If it's just about that they should have hired a model. I mean, we're not talking about a big f**king tummy here!"
Anna is of Irish descent.
At one point she dated Darren Day.
Made her American stage debut at New York City's Music Box in 1999 as Alice in Patrick Marber's "Closer".
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