I think it's a bit short-sighted to play any character and not explore, in some respects, the way they act when things get really bad.

My friends have noticed that if I suddenly go through a couple of months' unemployment, there seems to be a correlation that I don't ever tend to wear the same outfit twice. There will be such strange combinations of clothes because I'm probably a bit creatively stifled, so it's coming out in my wardrobe.

There are a lot of movies about misfits that are quite cool, that kind of glamorize it on some level. I think there are fewer films, certainly with a lady at the center, about the agony of what it's like to feel like you're not accepted, and you're different, and somehow you're weird.

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.'

As someone who works and travels as much, you could feel... A bit rootless?

I don't want to constantly be making sacrifices. It feels like it's really difficult for the films I dream about making to turn up.

It sounds trite, but I like telling stories.

It's so rare that I get to do something in my own accent in my own hometown.

I'm not consciously avoiding doing a lot of period drama, but I don't really seek it out either.

In high drama or high tragedy or anything, it's not really human unless there's some humor at the same time. And vice versa. So I guess I tend to gravitate towards projects which tread a dodgy tightrope between two things, which aren't really one or another.

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.

As a child I loved ghost stories.

We can't constantly tell stories of heroes. We have to hear the other stories, too, about people in dire straits who make bad choices.

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.

I love the solitary, romantic idea of writing.

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 played an awful lot of repressed people.

My access point to the '70s is films from that time, and they all have that paranoiac quality.

I love being able to express myself through what I wear - and for it to be a way of expressing uniqueness and individuality.

There's always going to be a separate version of you that people will create, and you have no control over it.

I always look for contradiction in a character.

I think acting can be very frustrating, and there's no experience that doesn't make you a better actor.

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'm very nerdy about my music, and I like interrogating people about what they put on playlists.

Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.

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.

If you act scared, your body produces adrenaline.

You either are a good director or you're not.

Would the Protestant Reformation have happened without the printing press? Would the American Revolution have happened without pamphlets? Probably not. But neither printing presses nor pamphlets were the heroes of reform and revolution.

The potential for the abuse of power through digital networks - upon which we the people now depend for nearly everything, including our politics - is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age.

There is respect for law, and then there is complicity in lawlessness.

There is no country on Earth where Internet and telecommunications companies do not face at least some pressure from governments to do things that would potentially infringe on users' rights to free expression and privacy.

The Patriot Act, passed overwhelmingly but hastily after 9/11, allows the FBI to obtain telecommunication, financial, and credit records without a court order.

Digital activism did not spring immaculately out of Twitter and Facebook. It's been going on ever since blogs existed.

When Google went into China, there were some people who said they shouldn't compromise at all - that it is very bad for human rights to do so. But there were other people, particularly Chinese people, who said they were glad Google had gone in.

The Internet is an empowering force for people who are protesting against the abuse of power.

In a pre-Internet world, sovereignty over our physical freedoms, or lack thereof, was controlled almost entirely by nation-states.

Despite the Obama administration's proclaimed commitment to global Internet freedom, the executive branch is not transparent about the types and capabilities of surveillance technologies it is sourcing and purchasing - or about what other governments are purchasing the same technology.

We're going to get the Internet we deserve, and those people who are the most active in shaping the Internet to their liking are going to win out.

Trade shows such as the wire tappers' ball are highly secretive and ban journalists from attending. None of the U.S. agencies that attended the wire tappers' ball - including the FBI, the Secret Service, and every branch of the military - were willing to comment when a reporter queried them about their attendance.

In China, the problem is that with the system of censorship that's now in place, the user doesn't know to what extent, why, and under what authority there's been censorship. There's no way of appealing. There's no due process.

The better-informed we are, the more we can do to make sure what's happening is in our interests and is accountable to us.

Digital power is every bit as likely to be abused as physical power, but is often more insidious because it is often wielded in the background until its results manifest themselves in the offline world.

There are many cases of activists having their Facebook pages and accounts deactivated at critical times, when they are right in the middle of a campaign or organising a demonstration.

While sanctions against Iran and Syria are intended to constrain those countries' governments, they have had the unfortunate side effect of constraining activists' access to free online software and services used widely across the Middle East, including browsers, online chat applications, and online storage services.

To have a .cn domain, you have to be a registered business. You have to prove your site is legal.

While the federal government is required by law to document publicly its wiretapping of phone lines, it is not required to do so with Internet communications.

Facebook and Google are battling over who will be our gateway to the rest of the Internet through 'like' buttons and universal logins - giving them huge power over our online identities and activities.

The early idealists and companies and governments have all assumed that the Internet will bring freedom. Yet China proves that this is not the case.

Social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be urged to adhere to business practices that maximize the safety of activists using their platforms.