I'm 40 next year and I'm very well aware that where I am now, it becomes a bit of a wilderness for actresses.

I am very much a seat-of-the-pants actor. I will prepare when I have to. But I like being unprepared.

It's amazing the things that you cry at. I cry when I smell my son's hair in the morning. We have a moment of peace and I'll be like, 'Ahhhh! How can you love this much?'

Cersei in Game of Thrones is quite solid and stiff.

I worked in Tesco's staff canteen because I fancied a boy on the tills. I served him his lunch in a hairnet and tan tights. Not just that, of course - I had a lovely white onesie.

I have an internal protectiveness where it's like, if it comes to just me, as frightened as I am of losing someone I love or things going sour or simply being alone, there is a dark place in my brain where I'm like, It could happen and I'm okay, I'm prepared.

I hate being looked at. Can't stand it. I know, I know - I picked the wrong career. I should have been a doctor. If you play certain parts you have this nice face painted on you, and then you have feel as if you have a responsibility to this idea of being beautiful. I hate that about our business.