I have Margaery Tyrell's - I didn't take it, I was given it - but yes, David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] gave me Margaery Tyrell's wedding crown. So that is sitting on my bookshelf.

Feminist, whatever the definition, whatever you call yourself - I am, I'm not - none of us want little girls being forced into early marriage before they're 12.

I’ve always been a black sheep. That’s a hard thing to be until you find your calling in life. I was bullied a lot at school, probably because I was perceived to be different from everyone else.

When a show communicates on such a vast level internationally, you know, and philosophizes about power, gender politics, and crimes against humanity, which Game of Thrones deals with all those things, then I'm just grateful that it reinstates my faith that art can be life applicable.

I run; that's sort of my meditation. I've been to therapy in the past when I've had crisis moments in my life; I think it's very healthy. I think that's even a more acceptable attitude in America actually than it is probably back at home [in England].

When you play a real person, you feel a sense of responsibility that obviously you don't feel when you're playing a fictional character.

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