It takes such a particular amazing and extraordinary type of personality to become an actor. I love them. You can't do my job without them. I've worked with a lot of film actors and most of them are so, so prepared in their approach because they are used to turning up ready to shoot: you have to have your performance, you have to have your lines, you have to have everything pretty much decided and ready to go whenever everyone else is ready.

It takes such a particular amazing and extraordinary type of personality to become an actor. I love them. You can't do my job without them. I've worked with a lot of film actors and most of them are so, so prepared in their approach because they are used to turning up ready to shoot: you have to have your performance, you have to have your lines, you have to have everything pretty much decided and ready to go whenever everyone else is ready.

If you cast your supporting cast well, it should be seamless. You shouldn't even notice who's a big part and who's a small part. A good cast enriches everything.

I've got Tom Hiddleston playing Henry V. I don't want to have a bowl haircut. I want him looking good so, you know, I want him in delicious kind of tight fitting leather jackets. [] I don't want him in tights, so he got nice leather trousers in mine.

I love working with people I've worked with before and that can be true of when people have worked together. But if two people have a natural chemistry and it just works, to be there for the first time, particularly on a story where it's about these two people meeting for the first time, that goes a long way.

People grow and change and develop through their experiences, so ultimately you have to go with what's in the room - the feeling you get from them and what the camera picks up.

I never really felt aware of my gender, being a woman, and whether that was in my favor or not. Because there's nothing I can do about that. I'm also really grateful to my parents for having brought me up to feel that equality is just something you take for granted. I hope that our generation will really change that. I think there's a long way to go.