Every role affects an actor a little bit. There's always a little chunk of a character that stays left over in your heart.
Anne Boleyn is an intriguing character. She seems to appeal to modern-day women in a very potent way. Because she was such an independently opinionated and spirited young woman, which at the time was unheard of.
When you play a real person, you feel a sense of responsibility that obviously you don't feel when you're playing a fictional character.
I think the beauty of the writing of 'Game of Thrones' is not that the characters are fearless; it's how they overcome their fear, you know?
A character on a page has to feel real, and for me the greatest fun is if you could gender-swap the role.
I'm a quasi-only child. With my brother and sister, I've more of a tendency to be semi-maternal. So, yes, I spent a lot of time talking to myself - I had this big dressing-up box and would just dress up as lots of characters and talk back to myself... Verging on schizophrenia, I suppose, if you analyse it carefully.
I feel that we live in an age where everyone's trying to reduce, and soundbite, and cut it down to140 characters, and that's not what life is.
