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.

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.

You’re adored and you’re talented and the world is waiting to see the results of hard work for the last year

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.

I was a daydreamer as a kid. I want to act because of whatever artistic bone is in my body. I want to explore what it is to be alive. I just want to make good sh-t.

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 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].