Cate Blanchett

Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

It's important to travel and move and have a continual set of experiences so you've got more to feed back into your work. For me, it's a natural thing.

Marriage is a risk I think it's a great and glorious risk, as long as you embark on the adventure in the same spirit.

There is not a lot of separation between work and home life.

If I had my way, if I was lucky enough, if I could be on the brink my entire life - that great sense of expectation and excitement without the disappointment - that would be the perfect state.

I don't understand a way to work other than bold-facedly running towards failure.

I discovered early on that some performers live their life in order to act, so all their relationships are simply an experience that they can feed back into their work. Which I find vampiric.

I had never done anything with blue screen before, or prosthetics, or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But, to be honest, I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head.Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.

All cities do face similar, significant trends in the future... most importantly global warming and climate change.

Planning cities is a necessary but risky business.

Well, I've never looked upon myself as being a beauty, per se.

My everyday beauty routine is always rushed and pretty simple.

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.

It's not the normal way to look at things but I experienced death at a really young age and because of that it's been part of my mental landscape that death is really very possible.

If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles - you're lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers you're brother and sister. That's what intimacy is, if you're with your soulmate.