'70s music is the kind of music I listen to. '70s clothes, I adore.
I grew up with my parents in the kitchen discussing the audition my dad had that day or moaning about something or other in the industry, so it was unglamourised and normalised for me from a very young age.
The movies I used to watch, I remember always being so angry because I felt like I, as a teenage girl, was never truly represented in a film. There were always bits of me that were represented - I'd watch 'Juno' and be like, 'Oh, well part of me is like that, but it's still not the whole thing.'
When I was young, there weren't any teenage girls I could relate to in film. They were all put in boxes: the virginal good girl, the really sarcastic asexual one. I wanted to do something that represented how I felt then.
When you're a teenager, your essence is so specific to being a teenager, and everything becomes so extreme. Your emotions are on the surface, and you oscillate between different things at one time.
Most of my really strong friendships are with people I've known all my life.
I always wear lip balm because I wear a lot of lipstick. I'm a big lipstick person. I would rather wear too-bright lipstick than too-heavy eye makeup.
You have to have really thick skin. Art is obviously there to be criticized and there to be taken in different ways. Not everyone is going to like what you do.
If you're doing something like 'Arcadia' by Tom Stoppard, which has been done millions and millions of times, and it's been played some unbelievably well-respected actors, there's a lot more pressure there. But I try not to think about all the other people who have done it before me. You've got to try and be original.
When you're portraying someone that really existed, there has to be a time as an actress where you leave reality and move into the fantasy world so you can do your job of creating a character.
I feel like all teenagers can relate to that feeling of being, like, so highly strung, and everything is so on the surface, and everything is so extreme.
I want to play a range, from victims to strong people, just as long as it's a well-rounded character. And it's not a woman who's just there for the purpose of the man.
We try to push such crazy ideals onto young women: the Hollywood version of what they should look like, what they should do, and the kind of Prince Charming they should be looking for. We should just be proud of who we are, because we can't be anybody else. So what's the point of trying?
I was really quite geeky at school. At one point, I wanted to be prime minister or a mathematician.
I used to do a Saturday drama group called Young Blood Theatre Company with school-friends in west London - nothing to do with my mum and dad. A casting director came to pick people out for a new BBC children's series called 'MI High.' She picked me, I auditioned, and I got the job.
I was quite academic, quite geeky when I was a kid. I was more interested in going to school than I was in becoming a film star or something.
All my friends were off on gap years, so going to New York alone, at the age of 18, was kind of my flying the nest. It was an amazing experience.
I want to keep playing strong female roles. I don't mean superheroes, but women who are really alive.
I don't feel like I properly started acting until I did my first play, 'Tusk, Tusk.'
I had a place to go to university; I was going to study history. I was in New York doing 'Arcadia,' and I suddenly thought, 'It feels a bit weird to go from a New York stage to Manchester University.' It didn't quite feel right.
