A passion for any novel, and any character, can crystallise your ideas when you really need to be as open as possible as a performer.

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.

Nowadays, most women just assume they have a right to be in the workplace, and any kind of discrimination they suffer is sort of more creeping.

I think if I was ever really going to be more serious about writing I'd have to try and find some way to do it with other people. I do find the silence kind of eerie.

Our conception of 1950s underwear is a lovely vintage aesthetic, but actually, wearing stockings with no elastic and a girdle was heavy duty.

You don't have to conform to a very specific aesthetic today, whereas 1950s women definitely had to.

I want people to think I'm sexy, but to know also that I've got an ordinary body and not feel intimidated.