Ive got a soft spot for really cheesy 1980s ballads by Pat Benatar and Foreigner. When I'm having my make-up put on at 6am and I need to be warmed up gently, it's always Ella Fitzgerald or Nina Simone.

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’ve spent a lot of recreational time walking around historical castles and estates, in Britain and Europe, and so I know what the real thing looks like

I've been a member of some good gyms in the past. I love a good spinning class; I love a good aerobics class.

I meditate but not regularly. I wish I did more meditation. It's always my New Year's resolution to do more.

You're watching us and you don't realize how much makeup and how much lighting is involved when we look good. We have a lot of help where we are. I don't think that it's healthy for young girls to be looking at these beauty magazines and watching TV and these shows and thinking [that's the standard]… there's more European attitude - you look at French film, Spanish film, they're a little more open to quirks and human nature. That we're not all symmetrical, not all the same shape… we need more of that.

I started writing In Darkness out of a frustration of the quality of roles that I was reading in scripts for women.