“There’s always going to be pressure, and there’s always going to be an area where you disappoint. As a storyteller, you have to understand that.”

I love Le Carre’s writing.

I played Mary at the age of seven in my first nativity play, and I loved it – there is something so fascinating about embodying someone else.

I really take my hat off to anybody that steps in the ring because it’s so hard – you’re competing against your friends, and you’re working in front of an audience who tells you exactly what they’re thinking.

We’re learning things every decade we grow through, and ultimately, you do end up with a different way of looking at things.

Playing Paige, I felt I had to train to wrestle.

I don’t want to feel like I have to change myself or my image.

I’ve been told to be skinny before – it’s already happened, but it’s up to you to either listen or say no. I’m not listening.

I want women on-screen that we all either want to be, or we know, or we recognize.

My dad still collects newspaper clippings about me.

My characters do have some fantastic taste in men.

There’s a reason why there’s a problem with bodies, and it’s because you never actually get to see any normal versions of them.

When you’re given a platform, and you’re allowed to perform, and someone’s there to heighten you as opposed to dampen you, that’s a nice feeling.

That’s something I’ve always appreciated watching actors that I’ve looked up to, is when they look like you and me, or they have a funny elbow, or they have, you know, a hairy face.

I found out I got ‘The Little Drummer Girl’ and my BAFTA nomination in quick succession, and I just didn’t expect it to be like that. I thought there would be a lot more time in between. It’s been an overwhelming experience.

And I’m a very physical person: I talk with my hands. And I felt how the clothes took that away from me. And that was the idea, I think. It was a way of limiting women.

Every time ‘Lady Macbeth’ and everyone involved in the film gets nominated, it’s amazing.

The memories of childhood have a strange shuttling quality, and areas of darkness ring the spaces of light.

I’ve been successful in different areas, but nothing brings a smile to my face more than my oldest son, Zaire, and my second son, Zion, saying the kind word of ‘Dad.’

Literature is one of the few areas left where black and white feel some identity of purpose; we all struggle under censorship.

Writing is making sense of life. You work your whole life and perhaps you’ve made sense of one small area.

Larry Bird is overrated in a lot of areas. … Why does he get so much publicity? Because he’s white. You never hear about a black player being the greatest.

I’m a basketball player. That’s what I do and what I love but that’s just not all who I am. I’m talented in a lot of different areas.

The sunlit face of the earth would appear to shine by the light diffused back into space from the land and water-covered areas.

To an observer situated on the moon or on one of the planets, the most noticeable feature on the surface of our globe would no doubt be the large areas covered by oceanic water.