Awards season is always a huge amount of fun whether you're a part of it or not. It's always really exciting seeing what films are coming and a lot of new talent as well.

The growing-up-fast part weirdly happened between the ages of 15 and 22.

Mum and Dad were very much friends and up for life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up; they just taught me to be me.

Growing up, I had a very happy childhood, with two parents who are still very much together.

I told myself, 'I am teaching entrepreneurship, so I should be an entrepreneur myself.'

In the early days of my modelling career, I think the industry was uncomfortable with how strikingly different I was.

There are some times when you make films and you travel places, and the take that people in the business have is that the worst way to see a city is to shoot there, because you work these long 12, 13 and 14-hour days, and you go home to the hotel, you eat, and you pass out.

Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious - but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance. Women made up nearly half my class at university, and my senior academic adviser there was a woman. In Alexandria, my friends were Christians and Muslims.