I wasn't tempted to go into academia for a second.

I was quietly rebellious. My parents thought I was very good but secretly I did things like saying I was staying in one place and going somewhere else instead. My older sister was openly rebellious and would tell my parents where to go, but I never did that.

In Australia I was seen as somebody who did only very modern, contemporary stuff. Then as soon as I went overseas I did two period pieces so it was like, 'When are you going to get out of the corsets?' And I was thinking I just got into them!

I wasn't tempted to go into academia for a second.

I'm a mother, so I instantly identified with what that would be like and the horror of that.

There were hard days when you'd be screaming for hours and then the next day, you'd have a scene where you were just talking and because your voice was so stretched out from screaming for five hours, it would sound weird. It required a lot of adrenaline, too, so you have to be able to turn it on all the time. You felt a bit thin at the end of it, just depleted.

The thing about the classics it that they are such great characters, they have a great deal of depth and different layers to them. I always find that very stimulating to play.