I've never been to New Zealand before. But one of my role models, Xena, the warrior princess, comes from there.

New Zealand is not a small country but a large village.

I have visited nearly 60 countries and lived in the U.S.S.R., Russia, and the U.S.A., and I have never experienced anything as good as what we have. Only in the Anglosphere countries - the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand - is there anything comparable. I am amazed at how relaxed we are about giving this away.

If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.

I took four years off after 'In the Cut' because I wanted to see who I'd be without work. I even tried being a hermit in the wilderness in New Zealand. I stayed in a warden's hut two-and-a-half hours off the Routeburn Track through the fjords on the South Island. It was early winter, so there was no electricity or running water.

I remember my England debut, in 2002. It came in Jersey, in a triangular tournament with New Zealand and India. To say that it did not generate great local interest is putting it mildly: our first game, against India, attracted a handful of spectators.

We are a small, open economy, highly dependent on global flows. It is inevitably a demand that dramatically alters and that is reflected in what we feel here in New Zealand. So there is at its most basic level a limit to what we can do and that is true everywhere.

Bumble is the perfect fit for New Zealand, a country that has always been a world leader when putting women first.

Belgium is half French-speaking and half Flemish, and I was born on the French side. So we spoke it a lot - like, in kindergarten, it was almost all French. But then I moved to New Zealand when I was 10, where we obviously spoke English all the time, so I lost the French a little bit.

I've wrestled in Seoul; I've wrestled in Auckland, New Zealand.

I would have thought there's no greater country to watch rugby than New Zealand.

New Zealand's Daniel Vettori is a very good bowler.

A lot of women in New Zealand feel like they have to make a choice between having babies and having a career or continuing their career. So is that a decision you feel you have to make or that you feel you've already made?

I hope that basketball gains momentum and kids understand that you can actually make a living from it. Not just the N.B.A. You can get a scholarship, a free degree - like, no student loan you have to pay off. That's huge in life. Once they realize that in New Zealand, I hope they get inspired.

Everybody knows about Peter Jackson, 'The Hobbit' movies and 'The Lord of the Rings' films being made in New Zealand, and to actually have been part of it for such a long period, to live there and to have friends that I will have for life because of that experience, is an amazing thing.

New Zealand's food and beverage industry is the lynchpin of the country's prosperity. Which may explain why it has concentrated their governments' minds.

We've got a thing called the 'tall poppy syndrome' in New Zealand, where if anyone is doing really well, it's quite common to try and bring them down - like, cut them down and say, 'You've been to the moon? So what? I mean, plenty of people have been to the moon.'

'Heavenly Creatures' was really the idea of Fran Walsh. It was a very famous New Zealand murder case, but not one that people knew much about.

New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.

We all have to remember that New Zealand is built on these kind of people who are rebels and renegades, people doing it their own way, fighting for freedom, and braving the elements. I think it's cool to celebrate that.