I was quite quiet as a kid. I sat around watching people.
— Rebecca Hall
The last thing that scared me... it was probably something stupid, like when someone jumped out at me, or I thought my new dog had gone to the toilet underneath my piano. Lots of silly things.
My access point to the '70s is films from that time, and they all have that paranoiac quality.
It's one thing to think about something, but it's another thing to actually feel it.
Since 'Christine' started screening, I'm overwhelmed by the response from women and men - that it's so rare to see something like this. We're just not given the opportunity so much.
I really think that 'Christine' is one in a million in terms of independent or studio.
One aspect of my mum's personality that has influenced me is her love of Hollywood and the golden era of black-and-white films.
There's always going to be a separate version of you that people will create, and you have no control over it.
I've always had horrible Valentine's Days.
I don't think that theater is the higher medium, that it's better than film.
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.
I think for a long time it seemed like working in an art form and being a feminist meant portraying women in a perfect, angelic light. And there's nothing feminist about that.
I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.
You either are a good director or you're not.
Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.
If pressed, I would say I feel British. It's where I grew up and where I choose to live, the culture that I love, but I feel perfectly at home in America, I don't feel like a tourist or anything.
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.
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.'
Some of my acting heroes have built careers on playing characters who do horrendous things - they're repellent and lovable. They're not likable, but they're lovable. I think Christine is one of those characters.
Some people just don't have the tools to deal with the stuff life throws at them.
I don't think that anyone can really understand anything until it's understood on a cellular, emotional level.
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.
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 never been desperate to please my father.
I was a really pretentious teenager.
I don't like talking about myself, if I'm honest.
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.
No family is sane, is it?
I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either.
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.
If you act scared, your body produces adrenaline.
I'm very nerdy about my music, and I like interrogating people about what they put on playlists.
I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.
I always look for contradiction in a character.
If I sat around thinking about acting all day, I'd lose my mind.
It's so great that women are being allowed to be heroes in big things.
I thought there was something intrinsically fascinating about people who communicate for a living and are incapable of communicating in their personal lives.
It's so rare that I get to do something in my own accent in my own hometown.
I think that female roles, they can be victims, they can be sympathetic, they can be in pain, they can be in suffering - but they can't be ugly. I think there's so much fear surrounding that, that it makes a film unlikeable, that it won't sell.
My childhood was very colourful, and I am very good friends with both my parents. We have no secrets.
I've played an awful lot of repressed people.
'Twin Peaks' is my favorite American TV show.
My mum's American. She's from Detroit.
It sounds trite, but I like telling stories.
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.
To read a character I'm not sympathizing with is generally quite a good, attractive proposition because I've got somewhere to go, I've got work to do, to try to understand why they behave like they behave, to relate entirely and understand them and to be completely emotionally connected. That is much more fun 99 percent of the time.
I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.
I quite enjoy cooking but I'm not consistent. I can't follow the recipe book. If something goes well, I'll never make it again, which is completely stupid. It's a one-shot kind of deal.
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!'
As a child I loved ghost stories.
