My mother was in the kind of late-sixties, early-seventies origins of female emancipation. And she was very much like, "You're not going to be defined by how you look. It's going to be about who you are and what you do."

We live in a time where it's more surprising if people are actually together than if they're having affairs.

I think that when [Charles] Dickens met Nelly [Ternan] it unleashed this sort of carnal, anarchic, cruel energy within him, and literally after she met him he changed his whole life - he separated from [his wife] Catherine, he stopped all the children from seeing her and went on this bitter rampage.

I've always been a feminist, and what I love in my work is being able to explore a full-sided woman and not patronize her.

I do sort of appreciate Nelly's [Ternan] view that it would be woman who would suffer mostly from that - who would be ostracized. The rigid societal conventions meant that it was difficult to live outside of them.

I think I actually did a production of "Under Milkwood," this Welsh play, with my drama group (at school), and I always remember taking everything far too seriously, and that it wasn't just a hobby but something I wanted to keep on doing.

I want to be paid fairly for the work that I'm doing. That's what every single woman around the world wants.