The thing I really know is that I'm not a model. I'm an actress.
— Vanessa Kirby
You are what you think. I really believe that. And I don't think you ever stop doubting yourself.
My thoughts are ridiculously loud and fast.
I'm not interested in being known for anything other than the work.
I always go for the underdog or the rogue or the rebel.
I've always been so uninterested in playing any kind of archetype of some pure, innocent, virginal woman. I just don't believe it.
You're always one of the only girls, because there are so many male writers, and there are not enough good parts for women.
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 never want to make any characters one-dimensional, especially as women can often be portrayed as the dark one or the evil one.
I doubt myself a lot but go forward at full throttle anyway.
I became completely obsessed with the Royal family, or at least the psychology behind them.
Wherever you are in the world, whoever you are with, sometimes you feel desperately lonely.
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.
I try to focus on each day and try to be the best I can be today.
I've been told that I have no filter.
I'm interested in what stops people getting what they want.
What your insides are doing, your outside reflects, and what you give to yourself, you can give to others.
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'm not a model. I don't really think much about how I look. If I did, I'd go mad.
On screen, everyone stares at your face, but on stage, you can basically play anybody.
I've played a lot of untalented people.
Before filming 'The Crown,' I couldn't care less about the royal family. But now... I'm obsessed.
I was always bossing my sister around.
I thought, 'If I go to uni, I can read and watch people and take many different subjects - take philosophy modules - and have time to travel in the summers,' which I did. I thought, 'I hope this will make me a better actor,' and it did.
My dad is a big extrovert - he's a doctor - but he always loved Shakespeare, and he took us to tons of theater.
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 just love people. I love them a lot.
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?
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.
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.
I don't see the point of grumpy people.
I always saw myself as a stage actress, and that was the reason I wanted to act, but very slowly, I've changed.
Some of my favourite characters have been people like Masha in 'Three Sisters' and Elena in 'Uncle Vanya.'
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.'
When you see yourself on a 40-ft. screen. you go, 'Oh My God! I look so weird!'
I've got a really tight group of friends from university and school who help me forget what I do and keep me grounded.
Trying to balance theatre and film is really important to me.
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.
I've always been pretty indifferent towards the royal family. I went on a school trip once to Buckingham Palace, and all I can remember is that it was really boring.
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.
I did apply for drama school when I was 17, and I didn't get in; I had a really bad audition.
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 love the idea of being an Aries.
I don't have a lot of instinctive fashion style myself.
So many times, you pick up a script, and you think, 'OK, so she's the sexy one,' or, 'She's the ex-girlfriend.'
Chris McQuarrie cast me in 'Mission Impossible' because he'd seen 'The Crown' and loved it.
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.
As a person, I'm incredibly overfamiliar. I have to be careful what I say!
I think my natural home was always the stage.
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.
