REBECCA HALL

I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.

As a child I loved ghost stories.

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.

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 was a really pretentious teenager.

I read everything. I've always got a book on the go and I'm really nerdy about it, I get through books and don't remember anything about them afterwards. But I read all sorts, from classic to contemporary.

Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.

When I was 22, I thought I couldn't wear heels because of my height.

I used to have the most visceral response to having my photo taken. I felt like instantly bursting into tears and running out of the room. I hated all the attention, which is such a stupid thing for an actor to say.

I always look for contradiction in a character.

One aspect of my mum's personality that has influenced me is her love of Hollywood and the golden era of black-and-white films.

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

No family is sane, is it?

My mum's American. She's from Detroit.

To read a character I'm not sympathizing with is generally quite a good, attractive proposition because I've got somewhere to go, I've got work to do, to try to understand why they behave like they behave, to relate entirely and understand them and to be completely emotionally connected. That is much more fun 99 percent of the time.

I've never been desperate to please my father.

I've played an awful lot of repressed people.

I've always had horrible Valentine's Days.

If you act scared, your body produces adrenaline.

One of the great things about the 'Iron Man' franchise is that they employ fascinating actors who don't necessarily do action movies. Before 'Iron Man' you didn't associate Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow with those kinds of films. There's an emphasis on repartee and wit.

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

Whenever I'm in theatre situations I will go out of my way not to talk about my father, but in the film world I can be really proud of my family and say, 'You know what: my dad's a really, really famous theatre director,' because nobody has any idea.

I don't think that theater is the higher medium, that it's better than film.

It sounds trite, but I like telling stories.

I don't like talking about myself, if I'm honest.