What attracted you to "Billy Elliot"?

I was very touched by it. It's moving on all sorts of levels. It was a diamond in the sand. Different from all the middle-of-the-road crap that I get sent. I loved the character, and the fact that she was disappointed on every level possible. She was so grim and jaded. Her relationship with the boy was so unusual: she was so unmaternal, and he's a boy without a mother. She treated him not like a child, but more like a lover, a man. I found that very interesting.

Were the dance sequences difficult for you to learn?

Oh, yes. I'm too old to be learning stuff, really. I spent weeks and weeks on that tiny bit of dance. It was so fast. Had it been slow stuff, it would've been easy. All those little fast steps... bloody hell. It's that strange thing that actors have of physical memory. I know it was only tiny, but it was so hard. I looked at myself, and thought 'You poor thing!' I felt like crying. It put me in mind of "Fantasia" - the hippopotamus.

What did you think of your co-star, Jamie Bell, who plays the young Billy?

He's a lovely boy because he hasn't come from one of those stage schools. He's a proper boy. I love the way he dances.

The film is set during the Miner's Strike in 1984. Do you remember it?

Oh, yes. I remember feeling angered at Thatcher, and seeing the results of it. Those communities being destroyed. It's appalling what's happened.