You learn stuff from every character you play about the human condition that can be quite enlightening.

I've always said about awards that they're meaningless until you win one, and then they're best thing in the world. The other thing about awards is that they engender respect from areas where it might never have come from without it.

David Michôd changed my life, quite literally, along with the chaps at Sony Pictures Classics. That's what set me on my way. I thought we did good work and had a good film, but when it was so praised at Sundance that year that's what really started the ball rolling. We all paid our own way to Sundance.

The eyes are the windows of your soul, and when you're acting, they're one of your most important instruments. Especially for close-ups!

A lioness has got a lot more power than the lion likes to think she has.

I'm in fact Australian but my mother's English so I've got no problem playing a domineering English woman.

It wasn't on my agenda, but the thing about getting important awards is it makes the adventure of your career have a little more possibility. I think just what's happened so far is already making the opportunities more interesting, even though I'm at the twilight of my career of like 48 years.