It's naive to think there is a woman in the world who isn't brought up to believe that they are waiting for their soul mate. You even see it in Disney.

But then I got a job selling coffee at the York Theatre, and when I met theatre people, something clicked. I felt comfortable with them; I felt like myself. I decided to go to drama school based just on that feeling. I had never done any acting.

When youre a young English person who wants to be an actress and you have dreams, you dream of being Vanessa Redgrave or Judi Dench.

I do mostly British projects, and for family reasons and life reasons Britain's my home, where I have a lovely garden.

Yes, I was slightly outside everything when I was growing up. My mother jokes that I was exchanged at birth. She brought us up to have traditional values. She was absolutely not part of the '60s generation.

You can't keep things secret in a film anymore. Once you realize the secret's out, you might as well go with it and not pretend that it's not there.

I was very nervous about the accent. I was very nervous about being an American.