You just have to do what suits you, and it doesn't matter if you don't look like everybody else. Be you. That's our gift and we've got to celebrate that.

People have lots of misconceptions about me. My mum, who is half French and half Spanish, gets outraged when I'm called quintessentially English. I owe my looks to my mum-which was 90 percent of getting my first job. And, some people would argue, 90 percent of my entire career.

It's different when you're an actor and playing a part, but when it's just you, you feel immensely vulnerable have strangers prodding and prying.

I think smells, like sounds, can be so much immediately affecting.

I liked pretending to be other people: I could reinvent myself, reinvent my own reality.

It took me ages to grow into being a woman, into being happy with it.

I'm not dead and I don't have blue hair but some people say there are similarities. It is usually intolerable to watch myself onscreen but this time it's fine. I think it's beautiful and a real work of art.