My mum's American. She's from Detroit.

To read a character I'm not sympathizing with is generally quite a good, attractive proposition because I've got somewhere to go, I've got work to do, to try to understand why they behave like they behave, to relate entirely and understand them and to be completely emotionally connected. That is much more fun 99 percent of the time.

I was a really pretentious teenager.

I've always had horrible Valentine's Days.

As a child I loved ghost stories.

I'm very nerdy about my music, and I like interrogating people about what they put on playlists.

One aspect of my mum's personality that has influenced me is her love of Hollywood and the golden era of black-and-white films.