I think it took a long time for me to realise that as much as I respect reviews and do engage with reviewers as a viewer of the theatre, television and film it's really unhelpful. Even if people make perceptive and interesting comments about your performance, it is so subjective and you will come in and change what you do, you can't help it.

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.

Acting is a strange job because your control is very limited.

If you're going to make great art, you have to make it at a huge cost - you have to be prepared to sacrifice what other people think of you, other people's opinions, and you have to make personal sacrifices.

When you're on stage, you build strong relationships with the actors, but it's a story you tell with the audience - you have to include them, you have to respond to them, they have to understand the narrative.

I think it is kind of important to direct someone so the character is appealing, but, as an actress, I find it frustrating because I think, "Why do I have to be more likable than a man would have to be saying the same line?"

I would love to live free of the fear and sadness and real desperation that I think the effect of childbirth has on women, especially because we are expected to be so concerned by recovery from childbirth.