No, it’s very comforting actually, to know that you’re sitting in a long legacy of actresses who’ve played the role. I’m absolutely all for absorbing all of those influences, so you understand the pedigree of the part as much as you understand the figure in history… because you are playing the part. You don’t say: “Gosh, I want to play Peter Sellers…” because you can sort of do that in your own bathroom.

The less one can think about oneself, the more interesting and attractive one becomes.

We change people's lives, at the risk of our own. We change countries, governments, history, gravity. After gravity, culture is the thing that holds humanity in place, in an otherwise constantly shifting and, let's face it, tiny outcrop in the middle of an infinity of nowhere.

Art civilizes us and it connects us and activates us. And so it's really important to connect with compassion, with stories about people who are different from us.

Well, I've never looked upon myself as being a beauty, per se.

I think when you have a character as richly drawn, I suppose then there are subconscious, mental notes that you've made.

I'm not focused on what other people think of me.