Newton's law: Beauty comes with babies

Thandie Newton accompanies every anecdote with a series of tiny movements and a tinkle of jewellery.

"It's going to be a big change," she explains, of her move next week to Los Angeles, where she is embarking on a large television project that she is not yet allowed to talk about.

"But I want to be able to go home at night and see the children. That's really the only reason we're doing it - to keep the family together. It's funny, in 25 years working as an actress, I've never lived in LA before."

It is easy to see why not. Whereas many actresses might embrace the insularity and frivolities of the single-industry city, the 41-year-old Bafta-winning star of The Pursuit of Happyness, Mission: Impossible II, Crash and Half of a Yellow Sun has always operated on a loftier plane, spending as much, if not more, time on human rights activism as she does on her career.

Newton has spoken openly about her troubled past, in which she battled bulimia and "mental disorder" after becoming embroiled in an "unhealthy relationship" with a director many years her senior.

But motherhood seems to have helped her define herself and lay her demons to rest.

Newton has three children - Ripley, 14, Nico, 10, and Booker, five months - with the film director and writer Oliver Parker.

As well as making sure they are aware of what is going on in the world, she urges them "not to follow the herd", to "question authority" and to "feel compassion for anyone who behaves in a negative way towards them".

Newton, the eldest daughter of a Zimbabwean healthcare worker and a British laboratory technician, grew up in Penzance, England.

"From about the age of five I was aware that I didn't fit," she has said. "I was an anomaly."

This feeling intensified in her teenage years.

"I've been different things in different contexts, and I didn't really feel beautiful until I had my first child.

"I knew that I was considered People magazine's Most Whatever, but all that stuff is just how we label different groups.

"And I've been very not beautiful in my life. There's no way I was beautiful growing up," she said.

"I love being in my forties," she added, with a grin.

"Just getting there and realising that you haven't grown horns or boils on your bum - when all the time it had been this thing looming in the future - is such a relief," Newton said.