I think growing up, the assimilation of most cultural conventions typically encouraged by a heightened awareness of gender and sex encourages a sort of separation of the self. What's so special about 'Hanna' is that her upbringing has negated this indoctrination; she's almost absolved of the pressures of gender or gender itself.

Esme Creed-Miles

Now I'm strong: I can run fast, I can lift weights, and that in itself is quite empowering, to have that physical strength. It changes my whole mental attitude.

Esme Creed-Miles

I feel myself in ways to be the product of internalized male gaze.

Esme Creed-Miles

I definitely struggle with a disillusionment towards my body and my gender.

Esme Creed-Miles

It's lovely to escape myself and play someone who actually inspires me and gives me strength.

Esme Creed-Miles

'Hanna' has grown up in mother nature's beautiful wilderness and that's what she knows. So for someone like me who has always had a life in the city, it was a chance to look beyond social conventions.

Esme Creed-Miles

I never wanted to be an actress. Acting wasn't in my mind. It wasn't in my calculations.

Esme Creed-Miles

I think growing up, the assimilation of most cultural conventions typically encouraged by a heightened awareness of gender and sex encourages a sort of separation of the self. What's so special about 'Hanna' is that her upbringing has negated this indoctrination; she's almost absolved of the pressures of gender or gender itself.

Esme Creed-Miles

It was so cool to be listening to, I don't know, some Cocteau Twins song while I was running through the Slovakian wilderness.

Esme Creed-Miles

'Hanna' has grown up in wilderness. It highlights humanness and animal-ness in humans. She has an interesting take on gender and love.

Esme Creed-Miles

In terms of actors and roles that I want to do in the future, most of those have been played by men. I mean Robert De Niro is my favorite actor of all time. That's the thing, it's not a woman, it's a guy.

Esme Creed-Miles

Sometimes punching a bag for half an hour was pretty cathartic and pretty necessary.

Esme Creed-Miles

Young action heroines feel in service of male gaze, rather than being the full complexity of a human being.

Esme Creed-Miles

You have your assigned sex but gender is more of a construct and I think one that is incredibly disillusioning and I think when we buy into those constructs then we start to maybe, unbeknownst to ourselves, cause real damage to our psyches.

Esme Creed-Miles

I don't really embrace femininity.

Esme Creed-Miles

The whole thing of sexually objectifying yourself is really demoralizing and degrading as a human being, and it's something that men have never had to do, and it's something that 'Hanna' has never had to do.

Esme Creed-Miles

The way I feel seen by the opposite sex is sometimes really detrimental to me. I'm very aware of how I'm constantly being sexualized and objectified in their eyes which makes me feel worthless.

Esme Creed-Miles

Even the basics of learning how to throw a good punch is very hard.

Esme Creed-Miles

It honestly affects my mental health, social media, on a really profound level. Because I'm constantly being bombarded with an image of femininity that I feel I have to adhere to. And I think there's a lot of pressure in this industry, as well, being constantly discriminated on your aesthetic appearance.

Esme Creed-Miles

As a young woman, my own experience of looking at myself in the mirror is something that's plagued me in lots of ways.

Esme Creed-Miles

I think the best privilege that I have in terms of having them as my parents was not just the doors that opened, but, I think, the stability to be graceful in the face of rejection, which is something that actors get every single day, and knowing it's not personal and not having that be part of your psyche.

Esme Creed-Miles