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.

I can only do something that my sister or my daughter, if I have one, could watch and feel positive about.

I'm fundamentally a busy person; I spend my time doing useful things and profoundly useless things!

I think with the best actors, emotion is something that has no kind of check in them.

I don't really want to play parts that I think are not fully developed or fleshed out, especially with female roles.

I feel that it's important to fail now and again. For instance, if I go for a job and I don't get it, that makes me not a better person, but more balanced, more aware of what life is really like.

I realise there's an innate paradox in promoting oneself on the one hand and saying, 'Oh, I don't want to be famous,' on the other.