As a woman, you feel that you shouldnt want to better yourself against others. Ambition has become such an ugly word, hasnt it?

I believe in eating all the right kinds of foods, and I don't believe in a totally nonfat diet.

I don't think RADA wanted me, actually. When I was at Oxford I had a boyfriend at Central [School of Speech and Drama] and it looked like the most fantastic life, but I think not going makes you more free. Nothing can teach you what it's like to work on a film set, and the best education there can be for an actor is to walk up the street and observe human nature.

You want to make entertainment sometimes, and sometimes you want to make art, because I think the way we understand ourselves as human beings is through art, and the way we process emotions - I know I do - is through recognizing experiences on screen, or in novels, or in paintings.

I'd really love to live in New York for awhile. That's what I'm hoping to do.

Acting is about communicating what it is like to be human: the pain, the laughs, the misery, the joy. I suppose I am searching to have it all.

And I like the look on people's faces when I say I'm doing this movie called Pride and Prejudice and they kind of smile, and then I say I'm in a movie called Doom and they kind of do a double take and try and put the two things together. And they never quite manage to.