We all grew up aware of Agatha Christie; there is no writer more prolific than her in England.
I've always been so confused about being a girl. Not in a Bruce Jenner way, just... there's that expectation where you walk into a room, and it's like, Is it OK to be a woman?' Or, you know, you're looking for your keys in the back of a cab, and sometimes the driver can treat you like you've had a lobotomy.
My face is almost like a canvas - a blank canvas in the sense that the hair on my face is very, very fine and my skin is incredibly fair and my hair is quite dark, and that's very unusual.
I always do a lot of work around characters to make them real people because, oftentimes, they really are a sliver of a person. Even with truly wonderful writers, women characters are there to emote, and they're often incredibly chaste or worthy. Or they're a 'different type of woman', which is the worst.
People think I'm totally crackers.
I love the company of actors, but the crazier it gets, the more I've come to realise how valuable my time is with my friends who work on the land or are builders or, you know, make music. Work in offices. Run shops.
You can't tell what's going to fulfill you in different stages in your life.
I can't tell you how disheartening it is to be told to go home because the director is filming you from behind and you don't have the right kind of body. As an actress, to be told that... Well, it's just a very odd set of circumstances.
People are fascinating. They're so unique and I think what's more fascinating is the reason behind the physical characteristic, the enigma, that's where the gold dust is.
Women are really complex and totally enigmatic. Humans are really complex, but in film, we've only ever seen that with men. We've seen antiheroes time and again with male characters.
I am a Graham Greene fan - I'm just a ferocious reader. I read an awful lot when I get the time.
Both of my grandfathers fought in the Second World War, and my great-grandfather died at the Somme in the First World War. I never truly believed that the War just finished and everyone was happy-clappy, brought out the bunting, and felt everything was okay again. That's definitely not my impression of the fall-out of war.
I worked on 'Happy-Go-Lucky' for seven-and-a-half months, and I'm in it for two minutes - largely because Sally Hawkins turned left instead of right.
There's something really simple and idyllic about living in a house very close to the water.
I think impersonation is a great art. It's something that I enjoy doing, in a frivolous and lighthearted way. But I don't flatter myself to think I'm an impersonator.
I've worked opposite so many male actors whose egos have been so delicate that it was just so hard to do the work.
Transformation as a female actor is allowed up to a certain extent - as long as they can still recognize you on a red carpet. For a woman to be a shape-shifter, and to be that malleable in spirit, is really not OK with the patriarchy.
It's hard for us to imagine, as humans, that we'll become less powerful. But it'll be healthier for the planet and for the eco-system if that does happen. If humans are going to merge with machines, then let's get on with it. I love humans, but I also love dinosaurs - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have wanted them to die out, either.
I grew up in the suburbs outside of Newcastle, and there were blank walls, and there was a lot of space to imagine - the fields and the motorways - so I used to sit and talk to myself as different people.
Someone who's a great hero of mine and has become a friend is Patti Smith.
