I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either.
I always look for contradiction in a character.
I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.
If I'm going to be honest about it, I think men get to do this sort of thing all the time. You look at countless performances by great male actors who get to play the whole gamut of human emotions. Women aren't regularly allowed to do that, and I don't know why people are so frightened by it.
If pressed, I would say I feel British. It's where I grew up and where I choose to live, the culture that I love, but I feel perfectly at home in America, I don't feel like a tourist or anything.
I'm very nerdy about my music, and I like interrogating people about what they put on playlists.
Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.
I quite enjoy cooking but I'm not consistent. I can't follow the recipe book. If something goes well, I'll never make it again, which is completely stupid. It's a one-shot kind of deal.
If you act scared, your body produces adrenaline.
You either are a good director or you're not.
I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.
I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.
I think for a long time it seemed like working in an art form and being a feminist meant portraying women in a perfect, angelic light. And there's nothing feminist about that.
I used to have the most visceral response to having my photo taken. I felt like instantly bursting into tears and running out of the room. I hated all the attention, which is such a stupid thing for an actor to say.
I don't think that theater is the higher medium, that it's better than film.
My mum's American. She's from Detroit.
I don't like talking about myself, if I'm honest.
To read a character I'm not sympathizing with is generally quite a good, attractive proposition because I've got somewhere to go, I've got work to do, to try to understand why they behave like they behave, to relate entirely and understand them and to be completely emotionally connected. That is much more fun 99 percent of the time.
'Twin Peaks' is my favorite American TV show.
I was a really pretentious teenager.
