Q: Your portrayal as the torn mother is just wonderful in Life As A House. What made you want to play her?
A: Initially, believe it or not, I wasn't going to take the role. I read the script and I thought, this is a fabulous story and a great script but why do they want me? I mean I'm English. However, Irwin Winkler (director) persuaded me to do it. I have to say that I was longing for a chance to work with Kevin Kline so that's how I got in. What I really loved about it was that there was this mother who just doesn't know what to do and whatever you do its going to be wrong. This dreadful thing happens when you have kids. You just try and do your best, but are your best going to be good enough? Its just very scary sometimes being a parent and I think that this film really addresses those problems from both angles. It shows a child who doesn't understand what his parents are doing and the parents can't figure out what the child is doing. I think it talks about families in a really beautiful way.

Q: Your character is very real, because she goes through all the different range of emotions that a real mother would experience.
A: Yes, that's exactly what was so appealing. I felt like I could really be this woman on many levels.

Q: There is one line that you deliver in the movie when she almost gives up all hope, 'is it wrong for a mother to hate her son?' Pretty hard hitting stuff.
A: Yes, it was tough. Its tough but that's what is so great about this job. You can say lines like that and say it with as much feeling as you can and feel it with a lot of sincerity and then you can go home.

Q: Yes, it is a job after all.
A: Plus, when you are working with people like Kevin Kline and Hayden Christensen and being directed by Irwin Winkler, it's all so easy because you can be as honest and as direct as you like and you feel confident because the others are all feeling the same way.

Q: Working with this young up and coming actor Hayden Christensen. Whether he realizes it or not, when Star Wars comes out next May he is going to be one of the most recognized and sought after young men on the face of this planet. How did you enjoy playing this young mans mom?
A: It was great. He really is extraordinary. I think that he definitely deserves to be heralded as on the best young actors of his age. It's sort of strange watching all the attention that he is getting right now. It's sort of like going to Yellowstone Park and you watch the pools and go ooooow. That's what it is like watching the transition of Hayden Christensen to someone who is obscure to everyone wanting a piece of him. It's really fascinating.

Q: Was it difficult for you having such a range of emotion in this film?
A: She is completely all over the place. This is a woman who has hit the lowest point. She cannot get any lower. She is frantic about her child and is so frantic that she can't do anything about it. And she just decides to give up. She says to her ex-husband, take him. She can't cope with him anymore. I am sure that every mother in the world has felt that, but usually you only feel it for a couple of seconds. This situation is truly desperate. She's got this loser of an ex-husband who won't get his act together and she's just furious with everybody. Gradually she finds that things begin to simmer down and she finds a kind of equilibrium and mellows out and then the carpet is pulled from under her feet again.

Q: But she gets a second chance and it's uplifting.
A: Yes, she does. You know its a strange film because it is incredibly sad and incredibly moving and at the same time its sort of happy and makes you feel good. It's also funny, because we see ourselves in it.