Sophie Okonedo

I can't, for example, Google myself, because I am very sensitive.

I am not a practising Jew, and I am not embedded in Nigerian culture, but I have a sense of those things inside me, which is very handy for acting. There are a lot of things I can draw on.

My main form of exercise is my bike. I don't have a car, so I cycle everywhere.

I find it so all-encompassing when acting that there's no room for anything else when you're in it; you're just locked into thinking about it all day, you go to sleep with it, wake up with it, and when I come back, I really need time to recover.

I always try to think of positive things to say about the people I portray, as it's more helpful for me.

I'm not from an acting family. I'm from a working class family.

As a child, I certainly wanted to have hair that I could grow long and flip around. I no longer want that. My own hair that I have day to day is a fuzzy afro. And that's who I am.

I am rather partial to Shakespeare, though I haven't done loads. But when it's done right, there's nothing like it. There are layers upon layers upon layers, and you unpack new things constantly. I don't know how he knew so many things - about the world, about women, about human nature, life, death, our fears and hopes.

The repetition of the theatre means you've got the time to get deeply inside the person you're playing.

I just get offered a lot more work in America than I do in Britain.

Sometimes I really need the money, really need to go straight to work. But if I had the absolute choice - money no object, my mortgage paid off - I'd really just work once or twice a year - but wouldn't everybody! - or at least do a different job sometimes.