It was lucky that Ralph [Fiennes] is someone who understands both film and theater and we were able to understand that scene so well before we took it to the set.

I've never taken a role where I don't like a person on the page. Sometimes there are changes that need to be made.

I'm more of a freestyle dancer. I like to do my own thing.

I do sort of appreciate Nelly's [Ternan] view that it would be woman who would suffer mostly from that - who would be ostracized. The rigid societal conventions meant that it was difficult to live outside of them.

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.

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

It was amazing how much rehearsal helped with the performance - it was almost a theatrical approach to filmmaking.