I was really, really lucky because I have always worked. It hasn't always been consistent, but I have always worked.

I built stages and I did stage management - I think I built the sets twice, I happened to be good with a drill, which is a talent I didn't know I had.

I read the books and I really, really wanted to play the part. I started kundalini yoga, kickboxing and running, and completely changed my diet. I felt I wanted to undergo what was necessary for the part. I love a challenge. And I love defying limitation, gender stereotypes and people’s expectations of me as an actress.

They told me I would find it difficult to find work because of the way that I look and they weren't wrong. [laughs] I thought, "Well, I'll prove you wrong" because I genuinely believed that the world was a more diverse place than they perhaps viewed it to be.

The freedom to be someone else entirely and be different versions of something. That's what I loved and I loved watching movies and I loved watching television, I loved reading books. That kind of escapism into another world was my favorite thing.

I'm certainly really rather tall at 6 foot 3, and I've been this way since I was 14, but for years, women who are even 5 foot 10 have come up to me in the street and said, 'Oh, it's so nice to see a woman who is taller than me. I've always felt like a giant.'

Game of Thrones' is a fantasy show not dedicated to any specific time, but it seems to exist in sort of a 1400s medieval fantasy world, and in that setting, I wouldn't have had a six-pack.