I just don't believe you're capable of being an actor unless you have a desire to experience your emotions in a public way.

When you talk to women who were working as print journalists or in broadcasting in the '50s, and then you talk to women who were working in the late '60s, there's an enormous difference. There had already been a huge transition. Then, of course, you get well into the '70s and there were women with children working.

I think I was quite lucky in that I went to an all-girls school. I was never put in an environment where I had to be the other - the woman as opposed to the man - all the way through my education. I was never made to feel that way at home.

We live in a society where children are expected to become adults overnight.

I really like films and plays that cross over different genres. So I'd like to do something that you think is a drama and then you think is a supernatural thing and then becomes a drama again. That's very vague.

Female ambition is such a complicated thing to play because it is an aggressive quality, and people respond very badly to women exhibiting any kind of aggression.

I have always been interested in gender politics, so I'm not that keen on doing things that don't represent a truth about women.