Romola Garai
I was 20 years old when, despite mass protests against military action, Iraq was invaded in 2003 - it didn't make for motivated political participation, I can tell you.
My alter egos have changed a lot over the years. When I was a child, I was a black horse called Storm. Whinnying and jumping over bamboo poles in the garden took up pretty much my entire childhood.
I love '30 Rock.' Absolutely love it. It's a game-changing show.
I would argue that something dark is lurking between the sexes, and that it is seeping out into cinema.
Films about women and their concerns are seen as frivolous, limited and, most damaging of all, niche.
I think the problem is that there has been a kind of backlash against feminism. I think women just didn't really see themselves winning that fight, and I think that probably led to a lot women feeling trapped in a perpetual cycle of disappointment - trying to be feminists and failing to be.
I would like to know that I was still going to be employed as a woman well into my 60s. In acting terms, a career that spans a lifetime is a very hard thing to achieve, particularly as a woman.
Nowadays, most women just assume they have a right to be in the workplace, and any kind of discrimination they suffer is sort of more creeping.
I get grumpy about the innate conservatism of our tastes; I love bold theatre, and I get annoyed when a heritage piece is really successful.
I cheated at the Model United Nations when I was 13 and had to get up and apologise in front of the whole conference.
I think it is kind of important to direct someone so the character is appealing, but, as an actress, I find it frustrating because I think, "Why do I have to be more likable than a man would have to be saying the same line?"Collection: Character
Motherhood so often comes in conflict with women's capacity to express and live their own lives.Collection: Motherhood
I really like films and plays that cross over different genres. So I'd like to do something that you think is a drama and then you think is a supernatural thing and then becomes a drama again. That's very vague.Collection: Drama
I don't really want to play parts that I think are not fully developed or fleshed out, especially with female roles.Collection: Thinking
Normally, when youre working on something, there are other characters that you have alliances with, and you have unified goals with some characters.Collection: Character
If you read reviews that you think by their very nature are not respectful of the actresses involved or not appreciating the work as it should be, I think you should write to reviewers or comment and say, "Are you kidding me?"Collection: Writing
Women don't question themselves when they enter into a story that has male characters, but men do question the validity of a female narrative.Collection: Character
I would love to live free of the fear and sadness and real desperation that I think the effect of childbirth has on women, especially because we are expected to be so concerned by recovery from childbirth.Collection: Real
It's hard for actors to have to deal with the fact that they pour so much into their character, but the audience might have a negative assessment of them.Collection: Character
I feel that it's important to fail now and again. For instance, if I go for a job and I don't get it, that makes me not a better person, but more balanced, more aware of what life is really like.Collection: Jobs
I don't really want to do things that I feel like are going to send out a message that I don't really want to sign up for.Collection: Want
I'm not interested in going to see films that massively overrepresent men over women. It's lik,e how much more have we got to say about this? Like men in war and dealing with their masculinity in conflict. I just think we've exhausted the landscape.Collection: War
I have a very strong, probably slightly aggressive personality, and so that just ends up coming out regardless of what I try to do.Collection: Strong
I think I was quite lucky in that I went to an all-girls school. I was never put in an environment where I had to be the other - the woman as opposed to the man - all the way through my education. I was never made to feel that way at home.Collection: Girl
When you're on stage, you build strong relationships with the actors, but it's a story you tell with the audience - you have to include them, you have to respond to them, they have to understand the narrative.Collection: Strong
I think if I was ever really going to be more serious about writing I'd have to try and find some way to do it with other people. I do find the silence kind of eerie.Collection: Writing