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.

Actors have this amazing skill - we bond quite quickly but equally we move on quite quickly. There's nothing particularly cold or capricious about it - we're troubadours and lead a troubadour's lifestyle.

I think that's the most dangerous kind of sexism: People don't realize it's there and we end up surreptitiously accepting it because it's just part of our culture. I've never experienced explicit, overt, confrontational sexism personally.

I think the thing about Anne Boleyn is there is an exotic quality to her. This is a woman who wasn’t raised in the English court. She was in the French court and Hapsburg court. She has a continental exotic quality to her. She’s quite a fiery woman and incredibly intelligent. So I think Anne really stood out – fire and intelligence and boldness – in comparison to the English roses that were flopping around court, she would’ve stood out. And Henry noticed that.

I don't believe in nudity for nudity's sake, nothing gratuitous.

Some of the most successful, talented actresses of our generation, be it Julianne Moore, or Charlize Theron, or Charlotte Gainsbourg, or Isabella Rossellini, if you know your cinema history, have taken their clothes off. There's nothing wrong with nudity, per se, if it's part of the storytelling and it's eloquent and it says something about the raw humanity of the story.

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