Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

I like to put perfume on my pulse points, but I also love the way you can sense it - there is an atmosphere that comes from releasing a scent in to the world - it's a primal thing. I spray around me, not just on me, and it lingers in the room after I leave.

For me, I think the bigger something is, the more difficult it is to make it nimble and fleet afoot.

To record something on your iPhone to be watched later, that's like the opposite of theater. The joy of being there is experiencing it with other people. It doesn't translate onto your phone. It's about being present.

We talked about trying to create an image that would somehow, to an audience, create the sense of awe, wonder and shock that the troops must have felt that their monarch - and a female monarch - went to the frontline of battle and was prepared to lay down her life. This speech is so well known and has been done in virtually every version of the events of Elizabeth's life.

There's not a long, entrenched tradition of theatergoing in Australia.

Some ideas, like what you're going to do with your life, take time to form.