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'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.

In my work I fight for, I hope, showing women in a true way. They've got brains.

I'm too much left brain. I very much have an emotional response to things; I love literature and films and storytelling. I need to nourish my right side, it doesn't get a lot of exercise.

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

But for everyone, I think, there is always a pressure to conform, and I guess as you get older you realize it's less interesting to do that. It starts with you, though, saying, 'I know what I like doing and that's what I'm going to do.

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.