I discovered early on that some performers live their life in order to act, so all their relationships are simply an experience that they can feed back into their work. Which I find vampiric.

After a run of several night events, you begin to appreciate the solitude and the quiet backstage.

People talk about the golden age of Hollywood because of how women were lit then. You could be Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and work well into your 50s, because you were lit and made into a goddess. Now, with everything being sort of gritty, women have this sense of their use-by date.

When I see daughters with their fathers I wonder what that would be like, although not in a way that immobilises me.

I love theatre - it's where I started - and I've directed a play myself. I'm not sure if I want to direct a film, but certainly, as an actress, I'm always thinking, 'Surely this must be my last film.'

I think when something is apolitical and it gets politicised, then it's incredibly disappointing.

It's interesting when you get those roles, which seem like nothing on the page, and you kind of subvert them. It's hard to say no.