.The South African star is embracing her single status, admitting that it's the first time she has been unattached since she was 19.

On her split from Stuart Townsend: ‘[The relationship] was sinking, and I had to give it a fight. I really wanted to try and make it work. That was the priority. I wouldn’t do it any different way.’

On finally being single: ‘I’ve never been single. This is the first time in my life. From the time I was 19, I’ve been in relationships, literally gone from one to the other within a month. It’s been good for me. I’m a creature who’s really found her comfort zone in relationships. It’s been nice to rediscover myself. I had to make a real conscious effort to do it, it’s hard. It’s much easier to lose yourself in flowers and cigarettes and coffee with somebody else.’

On her Snow White costar Kristen Stewart: ‘She just turned 21. She’s a child. When I think about myself at 21, I had just done The Devil’s Advocate, and Keanu [Reeves] had paparazzi following him and Al Pacino said this thing to me: ‘If I knew that my life would be under this kind of scrutiny, I would have never become an actor.’ And I thought, Wow. I couldn’t comprehend it. And Kristen is just living this to the max and still has a sense of humor about it. There’s this really lovely quality about her that just doesn’t give a f**k. A lot of people say they don’t, but then they go home and cry and pop a Xanax. Kristen actually doesn’t give a f**k. That’s what’s so refreshing about her. I’m looking forward to killing her and taking her beauty. That’s what happens, right?’

On winning an Oscar: ‘It was life-changing, it opened a lot of doors. But it made people have a lot of opinions about what should happen next. You realize quickly that you can never please everybody.’