A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.
And children have so many imaginative ideas about what's going on behind the magic.
And it's absolutely true that male sexual behaviour and female responses to male demands change a lot when they start communicating - and the levels of the communication that I've seen on the ground in very, very poor areas are so high and I think why don't we have that here?
Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening.
As I said before, many, many women don't have jurisdiction over their own bodies and particularly in areas of conflict.
But at the same time, we have leaders who talk a great deal about globalisation and internationalisation and we live in countries that not only have made their wealth in Africa but still continue to make a great deal of money out of Africa and yet we're not responding to this plague.
But certainly in Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, people don't really talk about sex and certainly religious leaders - some of them - up to now have been very unwilling to accept, for instance, the promotion of condom use.
But I am much more comfortable with being a woman now than I was in my twenties.
But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.
Children are the most wonderful audiences. What's struck me most is that that they watch it so silently, until the end when they shriek and shout and clap.
Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.
I don't have technique because I never learnt any.
I don't think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there's some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.
I hate the way market forces try to separate us out in to the appropriate demographic - basically in order to sell us things. We need to find stories that we can enjoy together, not separately.
I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch.
I have had lots of friends who've been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care.
I think if you took charities and NGOs out of the mix, certainly in developing countries, you would find that there would be huge trouble immediately.
I think that my work is my attempt, I suppose, is to try and become a piece of connective tissue. I'm trying to communicate with people here and in America - in rich countries - about what I see on the ground in badly affected areas.
I think the point about ActionAid is what it's asking people to do is engage with poor people in developing countries and understand what their lives are like and understand how the way we live our lives impacts on theirs.
I've a problem with the word charity because I think that NGOs, as I prefer calling them, really do take the work of moral and social responsibilities that ought to be taken on by governments.
If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.
If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.
In the same way as it's often not real to our teenagers - they just don't think that it's going to happen to them. And that's why on every level of society in our country and in Africa we have to start waking up and we have to start talking about it and saying this disease is here and it kills.
Indeed - judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.
It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly.
It seems to me ironic somehow that the first group to suffer in our culture was disenfranchised - it was the gay community. They were ignored, they were somehow considered, as it were, beyond the pale of normal society and now it's shifted to the poor and not only the poor but the often, not white.
Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.
Meal-times are brilliant for talking and listening, because you can let a mouthful go down while you talk, and chew while you're listening. It's the perfect arrangement.
My appearance has changed a lot over the years, but it has far more to do with how I feel about being a woman.
My worst quality is impatience.
Tell him I mind having to look pretty, that's what I mind, because it is so much more of an effort.
The Catholic Church - it's so difficult because I don't want say anything offensive but it makes me very angry that religious leaders from this faith have tried to respond negatively to sexual education and to the promotion of condom use.
The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.
The trouble is it's very difficult to pin-point the most important thing because Aids affects everyone in different levels of society, differently and you have to respond to it differently.
The way, I think, anything has ever really changed on this planet is through large groups of very ordinary people saying something finally.
We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really.
We need men and women to sit down and talk to each other about sex honestly and openly. That would help us fight Aids so immediately. But our lack of communication is hugely problematic.
What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together.
Emma and Greg were married in Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula in Scotland and the couple have a second home there.
Emma stars in Stranger Than Fiction. This film is Marc Forster's follow-up to Finding Neverland and it's due to be released in November 2006.
Emma is an ambassador for the N.G.O. 'ActionAid International'. She has done numerous press interviews promoting AIDS awareness and has made a television advert for their 'Sponsor A Child Campaign'.
Emma shares her birthday, April 15th, with the Harry Potter co-star Emma Watson who plays Hemoine Granger.
In the film 'The Blue Boy', Emma plays Marie Bonnar. The character's mother is played by Emma's real life mother actress Phyllida Law.
Emma makes an uncredited, brief appearance in the film 'My Father The Hero' starring Gerard Depardieu.
When Emma won her Oscar in 1992 for her role in Howards End, the award was presented by her co-star in the film Sir Anthony Hopkins. He had won the Best Actor award the previous year for his role in The Silence of The Lambs.
Emma has appeared with Sir Anthony Hopkins on two occassions, in 'Howards End' and 'The Remains of The Day.' Both films were Merchant Ivory productions.
Emma gave The Renaissance Theatre Company their motto 'Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.' The motto comes from Ovid and means ' To have conscientiously studied the liberal arts refines behaviour and does not allow it to be savage.'
Emma's movie, 'Stranger Than Fiction', also stars Dustin Hoffman and Queen Latifah.
One of Emma's earliest stage performances was in 1979 when she played Gwendolyn in Tom Stoppard's play ' Travesties.'
At Cambridge, the topic of Emma's 10,000 word dissertation, written as part of the final year degree result, was author George Eliot. The dissertation element of her degree received a First Class result.
In 1993, Emma told 'People Magazine' that she keeps her Oscar in the loo.
Emma Thompson and Greg Wise's daughter is called Gaia. The name comes from Greek Mythology and means Goddess of the Earth.
Emma was awarded her 1988 Best Actress BAFTA award for two television roles: Harriet Pringle in Fortunes of War and Suzy Kettles in Tutti Frutti. Both series were produced by the BBC.
Emma is the only person win an Oscar in the two categories of Screenplay, for 'Sense and Sensibility', and Actress, for her role of Margaret Schlegel in'Howards End'.
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