Wherever you are in the world, whoever you are with, sometimes you feel desperately lonely.
Vanessa Kirby
Love whoever you want to love.
I did The 'Acid Test' at the Royal Court, by Anya Reiss, who's the most wonderful, amazing female writer. She was only 19 when she wrote it. She wrote it about three girls in a flat on a Friday night, and that was magic because it was so rare to have three girls in your age group in a play. It just doesn't happen.
As I'm getting older, I feel like maybe I need to grow up a bit.
What your insides are doing, your outside reflects, and what you give to yourself, you can give to others.
Peter Morgan's writing is so much about what you don't say: you're saying one thing but there's 10 other things going on, and those are the best writers like Chekhov... they're masters at a sort of naturalism, and yet there is all the subtext.
I don't see the point of grumpy people.
My dad is a big extrovert - he's a doctor - but he always loved Shakespeare, and he took us to tons of theater.
I've always been so uninterested in playing any kind of archetype of some pure, innocent, virginal woman. I just don't believe it.
We know all about actors and singers because they do interviews, but with the royals, everything's so tightly controlled. They live this strange reality behind closed doors.
When you see yourself on a 40-ft. screen. you go, 'Oh My God! I look so weird!'
Just simple things - I like black and white, monochrome; I like suits.
I always go for the underdog or the rogue or the rebel.
My characters are always unlucky in love. It's annoying, but perhaps there is something in me that is suited to characters that have a darkness. Maybe it's why I play such damaged people when I'm not particularly damaged myself, I would say.
I love the Sixties and all those iconic women, Bridget Bardot and things like that, so I tend to lean towards those sorts of things.
I always look at actresses who I most respect, and they make me think that you can make a choice in life. It's whether or not you choose to go down the route of publicising your personal life. I choose not to.
You are what you think. I really believe that. And I don't think you ever stop doubting yourself.
You should choose who you love.
Growing up, the image I had of Princess Margaret was completely different. I knew that she was a slightly tragic figure, but I didn't know why. Now, I love her with my all my heart. She was such an amazing person, and getting to 'know' her better was an honor.
To play anybody real and famous is very scary.
It's quite rare that you find something that you can quite literally have an absolute ball doing, as well as the tough stuff and the difficult stuff and the pain.
I've been really lucky to work with a lot of theater directors in the film, like Stephen Daldry on 'The Crown' and Richard Eyre on 'The Dresser.'
My favourite thing is cooking for my friends. There are 13 of us who all met at university. They come round once a week, and I make a huge lasagne.
My hair has been so wrecked over the years by various things.
I wanted to do theatre - it has always been my thing.
When I first started doing screen work, I thought, 'I'm not beautiful enough for this profession - all the actresses I watch on screen are gorgeous and beautiful goddesses, but I'm just a scrawny, scruffy girl from southwest London.'
Some of my favourite characters have been people like Masha in 'Three Sisters' and Elena in 'Uncle Vanya.'
I'm interested in what stops people getting what they want.
I think my natural home was always the stage.
I always saw myself as a stage actress, and that was the reason I wanted to act, but very slowly, I've changed.
I've been told that I have no filter.
As a person, I'm incredibly overfamiliar. I have to be careful what I say!
I try to focus on each day and try to be the best I can be today.
I went to a very academic school, but I never really quite... I think because not that many people were particular creative or arty, I felt a little bit different.
I hate the idea of massive fame. I think the scariest thing for an actor is when your name becomes bigger than your craft or what you can do.
Acting is a very weird job. But if you know you're an actor, you just have to do it. You can't do anything else.
Chris McQuarrie cast me in 'Mission Impossible' because he'd seen 'The Crown' and loved it.
My parents would always take me to the theatre, and I was bored a lot of the time. Loads of Shakespeare, and I didn't know what the hell was going on. And then, when I was 13, we went to see 'The Cherry Orchard,' and it changed everything for me.
So many times, you pick up a script, and you think, 'OK, so she's the sexy one,' or, 'She's the ex-girlfriend.'
When I was auditioning for drama school and looking for a monologue, it was all, 'I'm whinging about my period or my baby that has died or my boyfriend...' Why can't you have a normal girl, talking about ideas?
I became completely obsessed with the Royal family, or at least the psychology behind them.
I don't have a lot of instinctive fashion style myself.
I just love people. I love them a lot.
I doubt myself a lot but go forward at full throttle anyway.
I love the idea of being an Aries.
I feel people naturally have a brightness. When that is extinguished by circumstances - be it a wrong marriage or a situation that you cannot leave psychologically - there's something about that dying spark that I'm drawn to playing.
I never want to make any characters one-dimensional, especially as women can often be portrayed as the dark one or the evil one.
Family relationships are just so fascinating - how they shape you as a person, how you can wound each other, how you're imprinted in a way by your family and the conditions under which you grow up.
I do tend to find when you're playing characters, often - just for the time you're playing them - there are sides of your personality that get stronger because you draw on them more.
I did apply for drama school when I was 17, and I didn't get in; I had a really bad audition.
