I know I'm not a conventional beauty. You can read a lot of painful things on the Internet, which criticise you aesthetically - but as far as I'm concerned, that's not what an actress is.

I'm a quasi-only child. With my brother and sister, I've more of a tendency to be semi-maternal. So, yes, I spent a lot of time talking to myself - I had this big dressing-up box and would just dress up as lots of characters and talk back to myself... Verging on schizophrenia, I suppose, if you analyse it carefully.

I had a period of unemployment for about nine months after my first big break, and it's the greatest lesson I ever could have learned, never to believe you're home and dry.

As an actor, your text is your bible, so you're not making a documentary, but you still have to follow the choices made by your writer.

I think classes can be the most fun. And if you want to make it a social thing and you want to go with friends, then that's the way to do it.

I say I’m an atheist but I wouldn’t mind being visited by a ghost.

I was frequently told at drama school that I was thinking too much.