Quotes

[on the Olympics] I do think the Olympics are a curiously male obsession. Who can run the fastest from here to here? You know what I think? Who gives? Because if you're not running to catch a bus or running to buy me a bunch of flowers, I don't care.

For a long time, I was worried about being typecast. But costume drama is a large part of the work in this country. It's just a bit sniffy to turn up your nose at it.

[on working with Mira Nair in Vanity Fair (2004)] She has the extraordinary capacity to push you as a performer, and yet never make you feel as if you should be afraid to experiment.

The single biggest surprise about acting is how unsexy the lead actors can be when you work with them.

[on discovering a passion for dancing during Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)] I had the time of my life. I have used every part of my body, plus muscles I did not know I had, because the dancing is a combination of salsa and Latin ballroom. It felt like daily aerobics.

If you do a lot of period drama, those female characters, nine times out of 10, are going to represent all the good in the world. As a young actress, there's not a lot that you can do to get away from those roles except try and move within them.

[on Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)] I wouldn't have done something that I thought had no merit in it at all, but I did experience a fall-out from being calculating about your career, believing that you should do something in order to get you somewhere else. It was just creatively unfulfilling.

An actor is just a medium through which the director makes his dreams and imagination come to life. An actor should concentrate on his or her character.

I didn't decide to take the role because I deliberately wanted to further my career, but so I could be proud of my work.

It's taken me a while to realize it takes a lot to be a good actor, and you have to respect the craft. Every job I do, I realise how little I know.

[on working with Rose Byrne] She's brilliant. I think that we were good friends and I liked her a lot. She's a lovely, very sensitive actress. That was one of the most enjoyable parts of the film, working with her.

I don't read everything that's written about me. But it filters through. And I know that for everybody that thinks I'm talented and promising, there is somebody out there that thinks that I'm s***!

[on playing Nina in "The Seagull"] It's very distressing doing that journey every night, and I have to do whatever I can not to get upset. It's a very sad part.

[on playing Angel Deverell] I think the main challenge is that she's essentially a pretty unattractive person in many ways but you have to approach a character like that believing in them, liking them, trying to understand them and appreciating what their world view is, and so I think that was a challenge occasionally because she wasn't always an easy character to like.

I think for me, the really wonderful and memorable moments was the way that I was able to learn so much working with François who's a very, very specific director and because he's engaged in every single element of the process.

The worst thing you can do as a performer is to judge your character in any way, positively or negatively.

[on François Ozon] He's monumentally gifted - that sounds so terrible and pretentious, I know - but he's made nine brilliant films, all of them so different. So you think to yourself, I might disagree with you on one small thing, but I'm guessing you know what you're doing.

I've done pieces of work that people have hated that I've been incredibly proud of, and other pieces of work that I've done my best, but I, personally, haven't been very fulfilled by, that people have thought is the best thing since sliced bread.

I try and do things that I think will be interesting. Sometimes, I get it right in terms of the fact that people like it, and sometimes, I get it wrong in terms of the fact that people don't like it, but I always try and do jobs which I think will be interesting to me and will help me improve as an actor.

[on playing Briony Tallis in Atonement (2007)] There has to be a real ambiguity about which way her life is going to go. It's a genuine crossroads at the point that I play it. So I think it's important for people to know that she is deeply struggling with this moral conundrum, but not necessarily know whether she is going to find the strength of character to truly absolve herself of this responsibility and find Atonement.

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.

When I was a child, I always wanted to be funny and to please people in my family. As you grow up, that instinct becomes more refined, but it's still there. How can it not be? I just don't believe you're capable of being an actor unless you have a desire to experience your emotions in a public way.

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. Yet the last year has brought some hope that the horrors of war might soon end and that I might finally be able to take down my press clipping of Tony Blair's head with a dartboard drawn on it. Unfortunately, my trip to Syria in January destroyed any of this optimism, as I saw first hand the colossal mess that the war has made of the lives of the 1.2 million Iraqis who fled their country.

I live in London and am lucky to have many friends from school, university and work who are from diverse backgrounds. Some of my closest friends are the children of refugees and I have always been fascinated by their stories and the struggle of how they came to the UK and assimilated into society.

[on her visit to the Syrian Iraqi border] I learned a lot about the troubled histories of three different groups: the Palestinians from Iraq, the Iraqis themselves, and the Syrian people. This was a lot of information for someone who is no expert on the Middle East to take in, but it was all absolutely necessary to understanding the situation in Syria.

It's too simplistic to say that people start to believe what's written about them. But what happens is that you become a certain way to please people, to be liked, to be what's expected of you, to change yourself so that you become the best possible version of yourself for people who don't know you. And I think that's a terrible, pernicious thing.

After the recent birth of my child, I had the misfortune of getting 23 stitches in my vagina, so I didn't think I'd be laughing at anything for a long time.

There's nothing I could do to defend it morally and I know it's not good for you, but I smoke and I can't lie about that.