Rachel Weisz

I’m a bit superstitious about certain things, like what shoes to wear. If I wear the wrong shoes, the whole day may go wrong. Or if I don’t get to the bottom of the stairs before the door closes – stupid little things like that. Then I also have all the normal ones, like don’t walking under ladders and so on.

I’ve known Daniel since I was 22. We did a play together in London many years ago.

Working with someone like Dustin Hoffman is a huge honor and, after you kind of get through that, you’re frightened about working with a screen legend, and I was just in awe.

I like the red carpet. It’s like acting because it’s like a fairytale.

As a child I was the best tree climber in our neighbourhood, I was like a little monkey. I’ve never been afraid of hurting myself or a little physical discomfort.

I think London’s sexy because it’s so full of eccentrics.

I don’t agree that the best giving is anonymous. We should be examples to our friends and communities. I should be an example to young, gay kids. And it’s not like people are really anonymous anyway — you remember that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm? In the end, everybody knows who ‘anonymous’ is.

Everyone’s got their own reason. Some believe it’s because I spent some of my childhood in the far north that I helped Chukotka, some believe it’s because I had a difficult childhood that I helped Chukotka, some believe it’s because I stole money that I helped Chukotka. None of these is real. When you come out and you see a situation and there are 50,000 people, you want to do something. I haven’t seen anything worse than what I saw there in my life.

But charity is a very complicated thing. It’s important to find an area where you can really help and you can feel the results. Charity is not like feeding pigeons in the square. It is a process that requires professional management.