Those moments when you don't feel self-conscious, when you escape that, are when you produce something meaningful.

The British vice is overthinking before we speak, which is really annoying. I love the way that, in America, people are more straightforward. The American vice would be sometimes speaking too loudly. You can always hear American people on the trains!

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.

The more you work, the more people can see that you're something different from what's come before.

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 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.

You have to be brave and not always play likeable people. It's difficult, because there's a demand for the hero or heroine to be very likeable.