I like complicated women. I like women with strength and contradictions.

It is a huge amount of pressure playing someone like Valerie Plame-Wilson. First of all who she is and what she's done is wildly intimidating and impressive. It is just scary to take on that responsibility, and you want to honor her story, an incredible story that affected us all. She is often doing things that were confusing to me, like her sexual prowess. I think that she is in a lot of pain and she has been really badly wounded along the way. She doesn't hold men in the highest regard... not just men but people.

Sometimes they come to you and it's a small role, so it's about the experience and the journey and mixing with people you know you will learn from. Or sometimes it's a scene in a movie that you think, 'I just have to play this person.'

There's a set of rules out there somewhere that says it all ends by 40. I hope to be able to defy that because I truly love my work.

Never say never - and I certainly don't judge anyone who does it. But most of the characters I play are going through some kind of emotional turmoil, so my job requires me to have expression. If my face was froze, what right do I have to play that part? All the women who haven't done anything to their faces are still able to play great roles. And some of the ones who have done something have messed it up - they look freakish. Anyway, for me it's about playing women with rich lives - and the longer the life, the deeper the wrinkles.

It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project.