Acting really suited me because I could connect as an actor to emotion.

Dancers are kept in a perpetual state of pre-puberty, and for young girls in particular, that type of pressure breeds insecurities.

The independent films are really where I kind of come from and where I feel comfortable. It's never been about the blockbusters and making a huge tonne of money. It's always been about wanting to do projects about the things that I think are important to be out there.

Traveling to Russia and Germany and being able to see the world at a young age was really cool for me, and I really liked that.

When I got onto set with him we were given a folder of storyboards. I thought that was pretty incredible because I hadn't worked with anybody who used storyboards before so he obviously had a very precise way as to how he visualized the film from the very beginning. It was every scene, but to his credit he was incredibly collaborative and gave us many opportunities to have our own input and to change things with him, so it was a really great way of working.

I think that I burnt myself out a little bit with my dancing because I did so much of it. I was exhausted so thought that I would try a different kind of performance and expression and acting seemed like a close fit; it was similar in some ways to dancing. My mum showed me some really good films and so I became interested in films and acting.

I always collect a bunch of images for every film that I do, that reminds me of an essence of the character, or the time that they live in, or what they're experiencing.