The role of women has always been undervalued in the spy world, always undermined in terms of recognition. Unfairly so. It's a world that needs women.

Women are always self-effacing and self-denying. There's a term that enrages me, and I always used to swear that I'd never play characters described that way. The term is "long-suffering."

I was never a left-winger, actually. I was a pretend left-winger because it was more interesting than being a right-winger.

American actors who voice animated movies are so brilliant at it, because by the nature of American speak, it's full of energy and full of commitment. And as a British actor, we have to kind of learn that.

I think the war movie genre is a very important genre in film. Film gives you a visceral experience of something that you would never otherwise experience. To give the audience a real feeling of what maybe a certain kind of warfare would be like I thought was great.

I think a lot of my work has been a weird attempt to liberate myself, but it's not altogether successful.

It was not my destiny, I kept thinking it would be, waiting for it to happen, but it never did, and I didn't care what people thought ... It was only boring old men who would ask me. And whenever they went, 'What? No children? Well, you'd better get on with it, old girl,' I'd say 'No! F*** off!'