I do think that acting is such an unpredictable job, and you're away a lot. If you're dating somebody outside the industry, it can be hard to understand that.

It's a tricky one when you're playing somebody who is mad. There's often the big actor's question, if you're playing a part like that: do you take it to be an internalized thing, pull the audience in, or do you go full-out, and kind of present it as quite a shocking thing?

Envy is the last thing that my parents feel.

I don't want to deny my femininity. But would I want to be a stay-at-home mother? No. On the other hand, you should be allowed to do that, as should men, without being sneered at.

You live with a writer [a mother], and you grow up with their words, their kind of fantasies, and I'd pretty much seen every single one of her plays, and been in a lot of rehearsal rooms, so it felt very natural and easy. It was lovely to get an opportunity to do that professionally as well.

In L.A., I'm twice the size - height and everything else - of most of the other actresses who are going for an audition.

It's good to know that other people think differently, and that's what makes the characters interesting.