When I read a script, I'll have a very visceral gut reaction to what does this mean to me? How does she feel in my skin? Could I play this role?

I do strive to find projects that are trying to carve out some new space. I enjoy projects that leap away from the crowd a little bit.

I used to look like a deer in headlights on the red carpet. You step out of the car and it's bedlam. Everyone's got crazy eyes.

People quit on jobs. They quit on marriages. They quit on school. There's an immediacy of this day and age that doesn't lend itself to being committed to anything.

I want to find something really wonderful to do next and take my time to search through the dearth of great material, especially for women.

It's sort of a meat market, the whole awards thing, and I don't think you can predict it anymore - who's going to like what you've done, if it's worthy or not. And hopefully, that's not why you make a film, because if you're distracted by that, or only striving for that, you don't do it justice.

The performances I enjoy are the ones that are hard to read or ambiguous or left-of-centre because it makes you look closer and that's what humans are like - quite mysterious creatures, hard to pinpoint.