Shopping is a bit of a relaxing hobby for me, which is sometimes troubling for the bank balance.
Rebecca Hall
One of the great things about the 'Iron Man' franchise is that they employ fascinating actors who don't necessarily do action movies. Before 'Iron Man' you didn't associate Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow with those kinds of films. There's an emphasis on repartee and wit.
Whenever I'm in theatre situations I will go out of my way not to talk about my father, but in the film world I can be really proud of my family and say, 'You know what: my dad's a really, really famous theatre director,' because nobody has any idea.
The kind of career that I want is not easy as a lady to manifest, because everyone wants a lady to be likable.
Some people just don't have the tools to deal with the stuff life throws at them.
I'm a very private person. I barely tell my friends what's going on half the time, so the idea that I should then talk to the world about what is going on seems anathema to me. People can say what they want. I'm not going to change anyone's mind.
Steven Spielberg was a huge part of my childhood, like everyone's, I guess.
I've always had horrible Valentine's Days.
I grew up watching his movies; I know everyone did, but I really feel that a lot of my formative years were informed by Woody Allen films.
Directors assume I'm, like, establishment.
I read everything. I've always got a book on the go and I'm really nerdy about it, I get through books and don't remember anything about them afterwards. But I read all sorts, from classic to contemporary.
I did 'Iron Man' because I was curious about those massive movies that were taking over the summers every year, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.
No family is sane, is it?
There are people all over the world who like to write fan letters in the voice of their pet: 'Hello, my name is Fifi and I'm a labrador and I think you're great. Paw paw!'
I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.
I'm a bit nerdy about accents. I love it.
Even if the film doesn't come out quite as you'd hoped, the process can also be very rewarding. I feel that way about a film called 'Lay the Favorite' that I made with Stephen Frears. I did that because the character was a real leap for me. The film doesn't quite all add up internally, but I feel very proud of what I did on it.
This is how much of a music geek I am: if I have a day with nothing to do, one of my favourite things is to just sit at my computer and make playlists of pretty much anything.
I used to have the most visceral response to having my photo taken. I felt like instantly bursting into tears and running out of the room. I hated all the attention, which is such a stupid thing for an actor to say.
I don't think it's helpful to put them all in a box and say people are evil and freaks because they have gotten to the point where they have fallen out of the community of what it is to be a human being. That's worthy of investigation.
If I sat around thinking about acting all day, I'd lose my mind.
I don't think I can boast about him. 'Hey, my dad is a British institution; he's done all these incredible things and I'm really proud of him.' There is a certain baggage that comes with that in England.
I've been listening to 'Chapo Trap House' - they're quite radical. Every time I listen to it, my brain feels opened up.
When I was 22, I thought I couldn't wear heels because of my height.
I was a sort of New York intellectual when I was 16. I wanted to dress like Annie Hall when I was 18.
I was quite quiet as a kid. I sat around watching people.
It's not like I particularly have an interest in creepiness for creepy's sake.
You sit there, and you argue and you argue, and you sort of bully the hell out of the text until you're quite sure what it's revealing, and then you perform it.
I think it's a bit short-sighted to play any character and not explore, in some respects, the way they act when things get really bad.
My friends have noticed that if I suddenly go through a couple of months' unemployment, there seems to be a correlation that I don't ever tend to wear the same outfit twice. There will be such strange combinations of clothes because I'm probably a bit creatively stifled, so it's coming out in my wardrobe.
There are a lot of movies about misfits that are quite cool, that kind of glamorize it on some level. I think there are fewer films, certainly with a lady at the center, about the agony of what it's like to feel like you're not accepted, and you're different, and somehow you're weird.
It doesn't matter how much polite self-deprecating fluff you have on the outside if you don't have a steely something in the middle that says, 'You know what, I'm actually really, really good at this, and this is what I can do, and I'm going to do it.'
As someone who works and travels as much, you could feel... A bit rootless?
I don't want to constantly be making sacrifices. It feels like it's really difficult for the films I dream about making to turn up.
It sounds trite, but I like telling stories.
It's so rare that I get to do something in my own accent in my own hometown.
I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either.
In high drama or high tragedy or anything, it's not really human unless there's some humor at the same time. And vice versa. So I guess I tend to gravitate towards projects which tread a dodgy tightrope between two things, which aren't really one or another.
If I'm going to be honest about it, I think men get to do this sort of thing all the time. You look at countless performances by great male actors who get to play the whole gamut of human emotions. Women aren't regularly allowed to do that, and I don't know why people are so frightened by it.
As a child I loved ghost stories.
We can't constantly tell stories of heroes. We have to hear the other stories, too, about people in dire straits who make bad choices.
I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be an actor. It has just always been an inevitability on some level.
I love the solitary, romantic idea of writing.
If I got too famous, I'd just quit acting, but I think it's highly unlikely I'm going to get really famous.
I've played an awful lot of repressed people.
My access point to the '70s is films from that time, and they all have that paranoiac quality.
I love being able to express myself through what I wear - and for it to be a way of expressing uniqueness and individuality.
There's always going to be a separate version of you that people will create, and you have no control over it.
I always look for contradiction in a character.
I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.
