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've done a lot of very low-budget indie films, so it was just really exciting and fun to be doing a film where there's a lot more time and these huge, vast sets. I was like a kid in a playground. It was amazing!

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 think Nelly [Ternan] actually has something very conservative about her, and she's very judgmental of (this other character's) situation, and can see that's about to happen to herself. So she judges it even more harshly [because] it's what she fears becoming.

The American vice would be sometimes speaking too loudly. You can always hear American people on the trains!

Acting has always existed alongside my normal life. It's been a case of learning on the job. I've worked in so many styles, with so many people, so I've picked bits up from everyone and everything.

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