Famously, Anne Boleyn was not a beauty: she was more about quirkiness and an innate sensuality, and there are a lot of references to her eyes. Which sends out a great message for women, because life is not about the aesthetic all the time.

If you're a loner and you like to go off and run on your own, do that.

Every role affects an actor a little bit. There's always a little chunk of a character that stays left over in your heart.

I do as much research as is physically possible when I'm playing a real person, be they alive or dead.

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 think we have to monitor our minds the way we need to monitor our bodies.

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