I've never loved a character as much as I do Niska. The way she's been written is so complex, with huge amounts of light and dark. It's a really satisfying challenge to play someone who is superhuman in their intelligence and physical ability but completely naive when it comes to certain aspects of life.

I imagine if you're one of those genius people working on AI, the desire to find out what's possible is presumably the driving factor, but I hope there are just as many people who are thinking about what we actually want. Just because something's possible it doesn't mean it's going to be good to us.

When I was little, I was actually really shy. I really enjoyed doing school plays, but I found the whole thing terrifying. I cried myself to sleep once because I thought my teacher was going to give me the lead role. I never imagined acting was a viable career.

Politics is terrifying, very masculine, and not particularly encouraging to young blonde women - as a career, that is - and it was only when I was working in parliament that I thought to myself, 'Well, this is a tough industry; can an acting career be any more intimidating?' and I applied to drama school.

All of my characters are a little bit based on people I know in real life. You know when you do that you have to change the character a little bit in case your friend or your relative reads the book, because you don't want them to know you wrote about them... They might get mad.

In 1962, when I was 19, I visited India. With introductions from people involved in the U.S. civil rights movement, I was able to visit with several of the leading Gandhians there. The hundred-to-one difference in average per capita income between America and India at the time was a stark reality for the people who became my friends there.

Now, with social media, it's a whole different world, which is good and bad. Back when I was in college, when there was no Twitter, no one knew what Vera Wang looked like - there was no face to the brand.

Economically, it's more expensive to make movies. I hope digital movies change that.