I really enjoyed it - being involved in watching rushes and playback [in "The Invisible Woman"]. Ralph [Fiennes] was very open to my input, I think knowing that he couldn't always be there 100 percent, that he had dual aims with directing and acting.

My most treasured item is the brown leather bag that my mum bought me from a little Italian shop for my 21st. It's supposed to be a vanity bag, but I use it as a handbag.

I'm small. I'm petite. But I'm a bit of a fighter inside. In my work I fight for, I hope, showing women in a true way. They've got brains.

I think in every character there are aspects of yourself that you bring to it. But then it would be really boring to just play yourself.

I've never done a superhero movie. It's very nice to you as an actor in several worlds to go and to experiment.

It can be very intense being an actor; it can be quite a small world. Then you speak to your friend who is a scientist and they have a completely different perspective.

I was into Virginia Woolf and James Joyce [at university] and I think we all thought that [Charles] Dickens wasn't that cool.