Actually, Bess doesn't make sense to me now, but when I was playing her, my approach was very intuitive. The script was so strong that I just abandoned myself to it without aiming for a result.
And it is very sexy as well: somebody says I'm taking you on a surprise date, you don't know where you are going and you can't see and then you put your hand out and there is a tiger. Amazing.
As actors, we went where we wanted to, and the camera followed us: it was like having another person in the room. There was no formal structure to the process. It was very liberating.
But as an actor, the kind of actor that I am, that's my bread and butter, you know that's how I get into a role, to have something that, a skill you have to master, something you have to learn or some physical thing you have to get your head around and it's almost like then you have your tools.
But the great thing about doing a theatre job is that once the ball starts rolling you just have to go with it, it's inexorable.
During Breaking The Waves, I was on my own in a hotel room. I think I would have been impossible to live with. When you go home, you have to pretend to be the person you are at home.
I always think I am going to do my best.
I do think you feel a little bit like you are preying on people's lives.
I don't think I will be less good because there's less pressure on me.
I grew up without a television. It meant that I read lots of books and entertained myself.
I had done theater at school and really enjoyed it. I got a whiff of that sense of excitement that goes with it when I did school plays.
I have a sort of unspoken principle, which is that I don't want to let it change me so that I treat people badly, or anything like that.
I think Silence of the Lambs was a great film and when somebody does that kind of suspense thing, with that much restraint, it's impressive.
I think so, Silence of the Lambs was a great, suspenseful thriller and I would expect Red Dragon to be similar. And I think it's very character driven.
I thought it was time to jump into that Hollywood mainstream and see what the temperature was. And it was warmer than I expected.
I wanted to do something artistic with my life but I didn't think I wanted to be an actor, so I went to university and majored in English literature.
I was a normal, rather dutiful child. I didn't even rebel as a teenager.
I wouldn't be interested in a slasher kind of movie, it's more in the tradition of the great suspenseful thrillers.
I'd never made a film before, and it was a totally new experience for me, so I shut my eyes and jumped and hoped it would work.
I'm lucky I don't do the kind of work where the main thing is that you're the girl and you look gorgeous. I don't look like that. I'm a funny-looking.
I've always been creative, I think.
It's a whole different kind of anxiety. But the great thing about doing a theatre job is that once the ball starts rolling you just have to go with it, it's inexorable.
It's an incredible privilege for an actor to look into the camera. It's like looking right into the heart of the film, and you can't take that lightly.
My character Lena is somebody who responds to people in a very simple way. I didn't have to take myself off to a darkened room to concentrate, I just had to try and be open. It's an interesting, subtle relationship.
My husband. He keeps me grounded. If I were in the world on my own, it would all be much more seductive. But I'm in a relationship that has nothing to do with the film world.
Not just to film, but the experience of being in a room with a tiger like that was amazing. It was kind of the best acting I've ever seen. We were all in this tiny little room and the door opened and this tiger walked in, literally, just sort of padded into the room and looked around.
Punch Drunk Love is a lovely film.
The film Punch - Drunk Love is how you see the world when you're in love. You don't see somebody's psychological baggage necessarily, you see the person walking out of the light.
When I did get home this last time, we had all these plans to go out. And then we hardly stepped outside because the time together seemed too precious.
When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.
Yeah, a lot of people think I'll be a tortured nutcase when they meet me.
You have to play the logic of a character.
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