I like characters who have faults. I'm drawn to darker people.

Mum wasn't at all religious, but she thought that going to the theatre was as important a ceremonial, communal experience that a person could have.

I'm deeply ambitious and I always have been.

Skiing in Whistler was great fun. It's an extreme environment that's very different to my own and I had never skied before, so I had to learn to take on the elements quite bravely. It was nice to try something new.

If you're playing someone who has lived, there's the risk of imitation, or whether you focus on the essence of who that character was as opposed to physical mannerisms. So, you have to figure out what it is ultimately that this particular adaptation of the story, whether it's fiction or not, is trying to say.

I think Brits probably feel that Americans are more like us than vice-versa, if that makes sense. Because we get everything American over here in Britain, but yet there are things which are staunchly English that you guys don't have.

I don't think I'm curvaceous. It's simply that most other actresses are really, stupidly tiny.