“I did dancing and singing when I was little, and then when I was 12 years old my friends were taking speech and drama at school. They were private lessons, and I started doing that. Over the years everyone else dropped out and I just kept going. I loved it.”

All the photographers were trying to just get me off, which was hilarious. But it was very, very amusing.

I think for me, home needs to be a sanctuary. I need to feel like I’ve escaped the day when I get home.

Particularly on social media, there is that level of detachment, some people feel like they can say whatever pops in their head .

I’m always listening to music to pump myself up.

I definitely don’t get recognized so I don’t have to deal with that.

I think the thriller aspect of this film [Fifty Shades Darker] is what excited me most.

I think working in the industry, I’d be pretty nervous to have a celebrity crush.

I did get a letter which was pretty alarming once. Well, it was sent to the Fifty Shades production office. And it was pretty … I’d say interesting. I don’t really want to go into that. But otherwise the response has been good, thankfully.

In Australia, everyone gets a nickname and people started calling me “Izzy” and I hated it so I just adopted Bella.

I was always into performing and dancing as a kid and acting was a safe place to have all my feelings, which is good as a child.

I’m just a psycho myself. I loved playing Leila [from Fifty Shades Darker], taking on [a character] who’s completely unhinged. I saw her as a girl who’s grief-stricken and she just doesn’t have the tools to cope. Grief and heartbreak, it makes you do some pretty crazy things.

I think there is something about L.A., fortunately: once you get one role people think, ‘Oh well, someone employed her, so maybe we can.’ I mean, that’s my idea of it, anyway. ‘She can put one foot in front of the other and say a line.’

I collect skulls; I think that a beautiful skull is a really good gift for a guy.

I think working in the industry, I’d be pretty nervous to have a celebrity crush. I’d be pretty nervous if my boyfriend did as well because inevitably you’d end up working with them and then it would feel very suspicious.

All my stuff is men’s fashion. It’s always oversized shirts, boyfriend blazers and trousers.

I don’t really cook meat. I eat a bit of seafood but I’m not really into meat and the idea of cooking it is pretty intense.

When I’m doing a drama, I wish I was doing something funny.

I asked a girl who came from America to England, when I was only English, and she admitted she had been to a drama school. And I said, “What did they teach you?” And she said, “They taught me to be a candle burning in an empty room.”

Let go of the emotion and drama you create when you don’t get what you want. Just stay present and handle one situation at a time with an open mind and an open heart.

Haunted by wrong turns and roads not taken, we pursue images perceived as new but whose providence dates to the dim dramas of childhood, which are themselves but ripples of consequence echoing down the generations.

At some point in time, you definitely have to go drama. Not to say that you’re going drama just because everybody else does it.

The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe.

Now I’d like someone to tell me there is no drama in real life!

The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother’s angels and djinns.