My mum put me in drama classes when I was about 14. I'd been going on about it for some time, so maybe it was a way to shut me up.

Female roles in comedies are usually quite silly, I think.

I've always loved to dance and keep fit but more recently I feel like I cannot keep up any longer and my back starts to hurt. And I get angry and then I have to really learn to forgive myself and go: you know what, you're nearly twice the age of some of the people in this room, give yourself a break.

I was going on years and years of auditions and being told I was too this, too that, not enough of this, not enough of that, to the point where I was so afraid and diluting myself into absolutely nothing...

On set is where I feel comfortable. The red carpet stuff, talking about the film, explaining your own life, it doesn't come naturally. It's all necessary stuff I suppose but it's not my strength.

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.

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.