My mother [was in advertising and] worked incredibly hard when she was bringing us up. She was a working mother and a working single parent.

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."

I've been very lucky. Directors I've worked with have been very amenable to changes.

I think, as an actor, you're always traveling. There's a sense of dislocation sometimes from home.

I've done quite a lot of improv work before, and I wanted to do this film ["The Invisible Woman"] because it felt like a different technique. We were very true to the lines, and there was something quite formal and almost theatrical about it.

I always hope for roles that have some depth and that I can get my teeth into and that will challenge me, in some way.

There's such a sense of theatre in getting glammed up; it's like putting on a play or short film.