I am rather partial to Shakespeare, though I haven't done loads. But when it's done right, there's nothing like it. There are layers upon layers upon layers, and you unpack new things constantly. I don't know how he knew so many things - about the world, about women, about human nature, life, death, our fears and hopes.

Sophie Okonedo

My main form of exercise is my bike. I don't have a car, so I cycle everywhere.

Sophie Okonedo

I never suffered anti-Semitic racism because no one thought I was Jewish.

Sophie Okonedo

I've told lots of lies in my life. I try not to lie, but I still do. It's very difficult to get to 37 and not be ashamed of something you've done. But I think your life is easier, ultimately, if you're honest.

Sophie Okonedo

The repetition of the theatre means you've got the time to get deeply inside the person you're playing.

Sophie Okonedo

I get offered loads of unusual stuff. I just don't do loads because I like staying at home a lot, and I'm a little bit lazy. I don't get that thing of going from film to film that people do. It would drive me nuts, and that level of fame is quite scary.

Sophie Okonedo

With everything in my life, I don't think too much ahead.

Sophie Okonedo

I always find something in all the characters I play. I fall in love with them a little bit.

Sophie Okonedo

My life is not nuts. I hardly ever watch television, I don't go out very much, so I don't really know what's going on.

Sophie Okonedo

I'm not from an acting family. I'm from a working class family.

Sophie Okonedo

I like having the script before I start. With new plays, you're constantly developing as you're doing it. It's really frightening. You don't quite know how it's going to end up.

Sophie Okonedo

But I'll tell you what I'm really bad at: I don't concentrate on what I'm doing, so I constantly lose things. I put my purse in the fridge - I'm one of those people.

Sophie Okonedo

I'd hate to lose the character actress part of me, because, by God, the parts are much more interesting.

Sophie Okonedo

As a black actress, all I was offered in British film was the best friend role, whereas in TV I was offered a whole spectrum of parts.

Sophie Okonedo

I'm drawn to stories about ordinary people who get tangled up in an extraordinary event or idea or emotion. I'm not saying I don't love films about super-people or super-doctors, but my preference is for stories about how we get through this life, what it is to be human, because I'm always struggling with it myself.

Sophie Okonedo

I am not a practising Jew, and I am not embedded in Nigerian culture, but I have a sense of those things inside me, which is very handy for acting. There are a lot of things I can draw on.

Sophie Okonedo

I listen much better when I'm acting than I do in real life.

Sophie Okonedo

The tried and tested becomes very boring. There's no way that the British equivalent of a Bryan Cranston would get the lead in a British equivalent of 'Breaking Bad.'

Sophie Okonedo

I don't like going for more than a year without doing theatre. I don't mind falling flat on my face so long as I feel I'm open to the possibility of something extraordinary happening.

Sophie Okonedo

When I do things that aren't very good, I'm worse as an actor. I don't know what I pick up - but it's something not very nice.

Sophie Okonedo

I find it so all-encompassing when acting that there's no room for anything else when you're in it; you're just locked into thinking about it all day, you go to sleep with it, wake up with it, and when I come back, I really need time to recover.

Sophie Okonedo