With everything in my life, I don't think too much ahead.
The tried and tested becomes very boring. There's no way that the British equivalent of a Bryan Cranston would get the lead in a British equivalent of 'Breaking Bad.'
I like having the script before I start. With new plays, you're constantly developing as you're doing it. It's really frightening. You don't quite know how it's going to end up.
The repetition of the theatre means you've got the time to get deeply inside the person you're playing.
I'm drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. I'm not saying I don't love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because I'm always struggling with it myself.
My main form of exercise is my bike. I don't have a car, so I cycle everywhere.
I've told lots of lies in my life. I try not to lie, but I still do. It's very difficult to get to 37 and not be ashamed of something you've done. But I think your life is easier, ultimately, if you're honest.
I'm not from an acting family. I'm from a working class family.
My life is not nuts. I hardly ever watch television, I don't go out very much, so I don't really know what's going on.
But I'll tell you what I'm really bad at: I don't concentrate on what I'm doing, so I constantly lose things. I put my purse in the fridge - I'm one of those people.
I listen much better when I'm acting than I do in real life.
I always find something in all the characters I play. I fall in love with them a little bit.
I'd hate to lose the character actress part of me, because, by God, the parts are much more interesting.
As a black actress, all I was offered in British film was the best friend role, whereas in TV I was offered a whole spectrum of parts.
I am not a practising Jew, and I am not embedded in Nigerian culture, but I have a sense of those things inside me, which is very handy for acting. There are a lot of things I can draw on.
I don't like going for more than a year without doing theatre. I don't mind falling flat on my face so long as I feel I'm open to the possibility of something extraordinary happening.
When I do things that aren't very good, I'm worse as an actor. I don't know what I pick up - but it's something not very nice.
I find it so all-encompassing when acting that there's no room for anything else when you're in it; you're just locked into thinking about it all day, you go to sleep with it, wake up with it, and when I come back, I really need time to recover.
Sometimes I really need the money, really need to go straight to work. But if I had the absolute choice - money no object, my mortgage paid off - I'd really just work once or twice a year - but wouldn't everybody! - or at least do a different job sometimes.
I do love being an actress. The other stuff, the 'fame', well - you know what? - you don't actually have to buy into it if you don't want to.
