Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I used to get nervous just going to the stage door, seeing people waiting to talk to me. I was afraid of being caught out in some way or not being right.
I'm kind of desperately looking for those things that will... you know, sort of show my wilder side, in a way, my much more irreverent, badly behaved side.
I certainly relish the chance to play a woman who didn't have to conform in any way ever to expected behavior or desirable behavior or attractive behavior.
Nothing can teach you what it's like to work on a film set, and the best education there can be for an actor is to walk up the street and observe human nature.
I've been on stage plenty of times, and one of the things about being a stage actress is you have a 3-month run to revisit the story nightly and play it again.
I didn't know where film came from when I was under 10. I just thought I'd be a stage actress. I always knew money would be tough, but that never frightened me.
I have worked with three female first assistant directors - on 'Hostiles,' 'Gone Girl,' and a short film, 'The Human Voice,' and they have all been exceptional.
You can get things out of acting with someone a second time around that you don't necessarily get the first time because you're more familiar, more comfortable.
When you're about to get married, and then you're not, it's all a big shock. You think, 'Well, okay, so I'm never going to lead a totally conventional life now.'
Sometimes it irks when people come up in the street and say, 'Oh I'm a huge James Bond fan' - when you obviously want them to be a fan of your work in particular.
Peter Chelsom and Edgar Wright are totally different directors and worlds apart, but both really accomplished directors who are certain of how they want to make a film.
I'm not frightened of what people will think an more. Because, you know, when you're a teenager or in your early 20s, you're always frightened of what people will think.
I think I was lucky in that I wasn't one of those girls who are told they are pretty the whole time. I never got that. Nor did I ever obsess about my looks as a teenager.
Ive been doing Pride and Prejudice all summer, so suddenly the chance to be holed up with a bunch of marines is quite attractive, and probably a necessary dose of male energy.
I've been doing Pride and Prejudice all summer, so suddenly the chance to be holed up with a bunch of marines is quite attractive, and probably a necessary dose of male energy.
The job of an actor is the same in all of them, really. I mean, you're just creating a character that you hope people will believe, so it doesn't make that much of a difference really.
It's not easy casting the men. You have to go gingerly, but you have to approach the right man at the right time because men don't want to play second fiddle to a woman. That's the truth.
We, Brits, need to be sort of loosened up. And there's some transfer overseas, I think the more American fare that comes to the U.K., the more cross-fertilization there is that's perhaps changing.
I think actors have to have clear goals in term of fitness, I think it is very important. I did yoga very seriously and I think that is a wonderful exercise. I take tennis lessons, and I swim a lot.
One goes on with the blithe belief that who you really are is transparent to everybody. Then you realise, with some horror, that in fact it's not. So all you can do is keep muddying the waters a bit.
I find I clash sometimes with people who like to plan things and book you in for lunch. I'd rather someone call me up, say: 'Are you free tonight and d'you wanna go to the roller-disco? Or play pool?'
Usually, when you first start out, you're so grateful to get anything that you just sort of take it and say: "Thank you very much." You're too afraid to even mention the money because it's embarrassing.
I can read significance into tiny, tiny things. If I'd met someone 10 years ago and not seen them again, and then I suddenly bumped into them, I'd feel that that was 'meant,' or there's a fate, you know?
I remember times of anxiety, ups and downs, and times of unexpected windfalls. But my parents loved what they did. And because their work was also their hobby, it taught me that work could be fulfilling.
I think when you are an only child, parents are more protective and fearful because they've only got one of you. I was not allowed to do a lot of things that, if I'd been, say, number three, I would have.
I just want my child to have security and being looked after by me, by my other half, by my mother and by a nanny. We all share that responsibility equally and I think he is a very well-adjusted little boy.
I think, you know, as an actor we get these terribly sort of pretentious ideas in our heads. We try to take everything very seriously at first, you know, until we lighten up, we get onboard, and have a laugh.
I think you tend to try, during the time you've got off, to forget about the film. It was such a total world. I mean, the sets were claustrophobic, and as soon as you were on there, you were right back into it.
There was a time during 'Gone Girl' that I'd come home, and I'd say, 'I get to be every part of being a woman in this role.' For me, I feel it much more as a springboard for the work I'm going to take on thereafter.
I always think that the people who have the hardest time in the spotlight are the people who have unearned fame, like the girlfriends of people who are famous or people who become figures of attention, not through their own merit.
It's something that I am going over in my head about the whole video game thing, and whether you support violence by being in a film like this. I mean, to me, it's incredibly unreal and it's all about the action, and just explosions.
It was in New York, and I've always wanted to film in New York. And the writer was a teenage friend of mine. We did youth theatre together when we were 16 and always had a dream of making a film together. And ten years later, we've done it. So it's great.
The response to Pride has been so overwhelming. I mean, people have really loved it. And it's so rewarding because we had such a fun time making that film, and it was made with so much heart, that it's lovely that people seem to be responding in kind to that.
People are saying we need more females in our industry and we need more female-driven stories, but that takes the men of bankable star quality to come forward and play supporting roles in those films because, ultimately, that's what the women have always done.
And I like the look on people's faces when I say I'm doing this movie called Pride and Prejudice and they kind of smile, and then I say I'm in a movie called Doom and they kind of do a double take and try and put the two things together. And they never quite manage to.
You get those couples who are very fearful of bringing children into the mix because they feel like somehow that link between them as a couple is going to somehow dissolve or become less powerful or whatever. And that somehow the child is going to disrupt their happy stage.
I grew up without any security - I obviously had lots of security because I have two parents who had a good marriage and stayed together, and we had a creative household full of ideas, but there was never any financial security. So I knew I could have a good life without that.
You want to make entertainment sometimes, and sometimes you want to make art, because I think the way we understand ourselves as human beings is through art, and the way we process emotions - I know I do - is through recognizing experiences on screen or in novels or in paintings.
You want to make entertainment sometimes, and sometimes you want to make art, because I think the way we understand ourselves as human beings is through art, and the way we process emotions - I know I do - is through recognizing experiences on screen, or in novels, or in paintings.
I don't think RADA wanted me, actually. When I was at Oxford I had a boyfriend at Central [School of Speech and Drama] and it looked like the most fantastic life, but I think not going makes you more free. Nothing can teach you what it's like to work on a film set, and the best education there can be for an actor is to walk up the street and observe human nature.
If I see any sort of injustice, I can fight like a dog. I'm not frightened to be outspoken and I can get very angry. I think expressing anger is not something that's considered very feminine... or British! If I saw someone slandered in the press... libel is something I really loathe. So, I probably would speak out about that, whether it was about myself or someone else.
There are couples who are very fearful of bringing children into the mix because they feel like somehow that link between them as a couple is going to somehow dissolve or become less powerful or whatever. And that somehow the child is going to disrupt their happy stage. Of course it is true, that's exactly what a child does but it's not something to be feared, it's to be embraced.
I think it's OK to play to your strengths, and if I have a quality of Englishness that people like, I won't hide that. I'm probably not going to play a junkie and that's OK because there are other people who will do it better. A view that's been held for a long time is that the best way to prove oneself as an actor is to play the grittiest roles out there. I don't agree with that.
I realized that many men are happy to play a supporting role to another man, but they are much less happy to play a supporting role to a woman. People are saying we need more females in our industry and we need more female-driven stories, but that takes the men of bankable star quality to come forward and play supporting roles in those films, because ultimately that's what the women have always done. We've always lent our name value to male-centric stories, and now we're going to have to ask the men to swallow their pride, because it seems that it's about pride.