I'm one of those strange beasts who really likes a corset.

I don't have a sense of entitlement or that I deserve this. You'd be surprised at the lack of competition between nominees - I think a lot of it's imposed from the outside. Can I have my champagne now?

I think probably winning these things [an Oscar] can be a bit of a curse depending on who you are and how you think. But I haven't been on a journey to get anywhere in particular, so that hasn't changed. And my criteria for choosing projects hasn't changed.

With a role like Hedda Gabler, which is incredibly complicated, you often feel that you haven't even scratched the surface the first time around, so you relish the opportunity to do it again, particularly with an ensemble of actors and the company we assembled. But when you do that in films you somehow have to make some attempt to uncross people's arms and you have to justify why you're doing it.

I'm not interested in playing characters who see the world through my prism. I think the journey of understanding any character is to see how they tick and how they differ from you.

My everyday beauty routine is always rushed and pretty simple.

It was fantastic to be able to have my kids on set. Dash, my eldest son, who’s not quite five, was into knights and his godmother had given him a plastic Marks & Spencer knights’ outfit and [first assistant director] Tommy Gormley said that he could stand to protect me during the scene where Clive [Owen] is talking about the immensity of sitting on the throne. I’m actually looking through an archway at my son standing in his knights’ costume protecting me!