Actress

I tend to be overly responsible for other people's feelings.

I am quite odd-looking in real life.

I think it's really hard to move between genres, and I think, especially in Britain, we're very judgmental about it - me included. I know that when an actor comes out with some poetry or an album, I think, 'Oh crikey, what's this going to be like?'

When I was little, I would always try and look into the television screen along the sides. I kept thinking if you looked in there, you could see what was happening off camera.

I am a Graham Greene fan - I'm just a ferocious reader. I read an awful lot when I get the time.

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.

Tracey Emin's 'Strangeland' made me see that everything I have to be creative is inside of myself.

Shakespeare was the thing that started me off on that train, you know, and every one of his plays. There are so many different characters, and the wonderful thing about being in an all-girls school was I got to play them all, you know. So I got to play Mercutio and Oberon and Malvolio - it was great.

Someone who's a great hero of mine and has become a friend is Patti Smith.

I'm very pragmatic.

I can walk into meetings now and ask for equal pay, and the people will listen to me. They may not give it to me, but I will be listened to. That's huge.

I think it's the easiest thing in the world to be horribly critical about yourself.

I don't read reviews, and it's not because I don't think I can learn something, I'm sure I could learn a lot. I just that I feel very passionately about the work and especially when you're doing theater, you really only need one director and when you read reviews, you feel like you have twelve, because you respond to them, naturally.

I've always thrown like a girl.

I think any artist is a perfectionist by their nature.

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.

I've worked with so few female directors.

I think, sometimes, you can just get really burnt out on something you enjoy doing and feel like the sponge is completely wrung dry.

We need to band together in solidarity. There's so many portions of our community that are under-represented. You rarely see disabled actors on movie posters or black men or Latino guys.

Sometimes I can think of nothing more blissful than going to Berkeley and reading Byron for three years.