The thing about being a parent it puts priorities in order. Thank God, you're not totally focused on yourself anymore. You get to put your energy out, as opposed to worrying all the time about your own stuff. It's such a relief, but when you think about it, it's like an extension of you. It's like a safer way; you feel less indulgent about it, but they are extensions of yourself, and I think you're freer to love them so unconditionally. That, we're not able to do with our own selves.

With the television thing you have this lull of time where you're not with the character. And when you get those first pages, you're like, "Who is she again? Huh? Where did we leave off?" Then you show up at the read-through and all of the sudden the voice is there, and you realize that the character is still stewing in you all that time, even in the downtime.

I think that's the best way to see things, especially this kind of play where there's no pyrotechnics, it's literally just people talking.

It's hard to know really how it's going to happen, but the career ebbs and flows and now there's a nicer feeling of interest than there has been at other times.

I'm pretty low-maintenance, but I like my time to myself, and once you have a child, you have to fight for it. I remember the first long bath I took [after Ptolemy's birth] was such a moment. Because a lot of the time you're in the shower, and if that baby cries, you've got to turn off the water and go!

The interesting thing about Bettie Page that I discovered was to leave the mystery. She always retained a little mystery. Let there be some unknowns.

If my life had gone in a different direction - some of the choices you makes when you're in your teens and your early 20s, I fortunately feel that I haven't been marked by those things.