“I’m interested in art for all. I don’t want it to be only the sons and daughters of Tory MPs who get to see my plays.”

New York City is crazy and beautiful and really close to my heart, and I’ve always had dear friends here – family, actually, I would say.

[Season 4 of Sherlock Holmes will be] myopically dark. You’re talking about the end of the universe darkness. You can’t see in front of you and would walk into everything dark.

It’s the same thing, I think, whether it’s breathing or meditation or yoga. And running is a great way of doing it.

Do I like being thought of as attractive? I don’t know anyone on Earth who doesn’t, but I do find it funny. I look in a mirror and I see all the faults I’ve lived with for 35 years and yet people go kind of nuts for certain things about me. It’s not me being humble. I just think it’s weird.

Any irrational fears?no, i’m quite a rationalist. i’m not superstitious, i think life is too full of natural wonders and logical complexities to worry about illogical things.

Do awards change careers? Well, I haven’t heard of many stories where that’s the case. It’s a fun excuse to meet colleagues and celebrate people who’ve done well that year in certain people’s eyes, and it’s nothing more than that.

I’ve been broody since I was 12, but I can’t just get anyone pregnant. It has got to be the right person.

I know he [Julian Assange] is a man of fierce determination, and now living under the strain of house arrest in the Ecuadorean embassy as a “political exile,” as he calls himself.

It’s one of the things that attracted me to the role [Doctor Strange] is the fact that it’s a really widely origin story, I mean this is part of it, but of course there’s the whole chapter before where he’s the neurosurgeon who has the accident. It’s fantastic.

I’ve done a bit of live action before but the fight sequences, the wire work and the physical regime were taken to another level [ in Doctor Strange].

I have actual acting scars.

For brain surgeons it’s particularly difficult to deal with failure. It was fascinating to learn about that whole world.

Metaphorically speaking, it’s easy to bump into one another on the journey from A to B and not even notice. People should take time to notice, enjoy and help each other.

I’ve turned up to costume parties in the wrong costume. I’ve made social faux pas a plenty. I’ve put one foot in front of the other and fallen over.

Looking for happiness is a sure way to sadness, I think. You have to take each moment as it comes.

As an actor, you are aware of how a role can seep into your real life.

I think I’m much more afraid of making a mistake in raising my daughters than I would be with any work that I do, as an actor. It’s a much higher scale of fear, raising kids.

Without my ministry, I would just be Martin Luther King’s daughter. You know, when people call me that, it doesn’t bother me anymore. I know I am not my father. I know I am me.

I have no secrets. Neither did Tupac, neither does my daughter. We don’t live behind secrets, we don’t live lies, we are who we are, and we are pretty happy to be who we are.

I had a friend, who was abused by her dad. I made a vow to myself that I’d never hurt my daughter.

The only difference between a mother and her daughter is how long they’ve lived with the trauma.

I always tell myself that it is very, very important for me to be a good role model for Alma, my daughter.

There’s nothing greater than a girl…. Well a kid, your daughter, but that’s a girl too.

My daughter will find some of the sweetest words to tell you that can make a grown man cry. She still gives me the same inspiration. She still motivates me.