ANNA CHANCELLOR

Do you have any secret tattoos? I have a small bluebird on my back, which I had done when I was 19 and travelling around Brazil with my sister. What’s the funniest thing you’ve read about yourself? I’d been doing interviews all day. The last one was with a tabloid and the headline the next day read: ‘I might look intelligent but I’m as thick as shit.’ Which I think I did say. What advice would you give your 18-year-old self? Don’t believe everything you think — or feel. What would you eat for your last supper? I’d make Ottolenghi’s maqluba — a layered upside-down vegetable and rice cake. I’d share it with my closest family and some old fruity friends like Rupert Everett. What last made you cry? I’m always crying. I get a lump in my throat when I see intimacy between parents and their children. What keeps you up in the middle of the night? My hormones. I don’t mean that I want sex. It’s this feeling that I’m a fish caught on a hook rising to the surface. When have you felt at your sexiest? When I feel most powerful. What has been your greatest mistake? I still get caught up in my own drama and have to remind myself that everything passes. What did you buy with your first pay cheque? A pair of suede boots and a Jean Paul Gaultier-type frock coat, both of which I then left on a train. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? A German advert for white fish sauce; we had to eat loads of it. What’s been your biggest fashion mistake? I should brush my hair more. What’s your desert island boxset? 1930s American screwball comedies. Is there a book that changed the way you thought about things? The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch. It’s about four Victorian women who are intoxicated by the Orient. Their neck-breaking passion woke a few synapses in my brain. Do you have any superstitions? In the theatre, if you say ‘Macbeth’, all the actors will start looking very anxious. I’m so well-trained not to say it in the theatre that I can hardly say it in normal life. What’s your karaoke song? ‘Dancing with Myself’ by Nouvelle Vague. Private Lives is in cinemas for one night only on Thursday 6 February (cinemalive.com)