About what she has been up to recently:

I actually came out to the countryside [The Cotswolds] a few months ago. I’m surrounded by nature, which is an absolute blessing. I mean, I don’t know how you found it; how to not make each day feel like a Groundhog Day, when all of time melts into one during a strange lockdown. I’ve been forcing myself to go out for really long walks, just to try and formulate some form of structure in a day. Also, just holed up at home, doing lots of reading and “lockdown-ness”.

Where I am in particular, it was like full-on Winter Wonderland, which was beautiful. But also, I went and drove over a massive rock, and burst my tire! It got me thinking that I need to get more practical with countryside living, you know, change the tire, get better at making fires, and a bit more DIY.

 

I’ve been reading a real mixed bag of stuff. I actually just finished Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and I’ve been mixing that up with Carl Jung, and looking at psychology, which is something that I’ve never picked up before.

Wow, that sounds heavy!

Yeah, it is quite heavy (laughs), which is why you definitely need to mix it up.

It was really easy with Tahar, mainly because he’s an incredible actor. Our instincts and our way of working were Very similar. It was a real ease into the relationship, because there was instantly a great deal of trust, and with that trust comes the kind of safety to really explore—I suppose, it is the best feeling you could ever feel as an actor. That’s what I loved about working with Tahar, there was this incredibly exciting feeling of experimentation. He would always go, “give me one for free,” and what he’d do on the one for free would completely surprise you, playing the entire scene differently. It was simple with Tahar, and it was pretty inspiring every day.

Bangkok kind of does that for you. I feel like Bangkok is the other huge character in the series. There was something about theenergy and the freneticism of the city: the heat, and the smell, and the textures of the city… | think it helped us create the world of the hedonistic environment, and the feeling of freedom in the 1970s. Like, the market scenes weren’t set up; we just arrived one day and did our shoot—it’s the real life world around us, which I felt really imbued this series with that energy. So, yeah, anything dark, we weren’t able to stew in it for too long, because the city is so alive; there are distractions as soon as you cut.

Well, I wouldn’t even say that there’s a particular method. Sometimes, it’s about which script lands on your desk at which time. I’m very instinctive from the page – it takes so much commitment every time. You have to really find those strong instincts when it comes to finding the right next thing. However, it’s hard to be brave as well, in terms of the decision-making, because often, it means you have to turn things down to wait for the right thing, which is scary.

That being said, repetition is uninteresting to me, and playing someone close to myself, I don’t enjoy so much either. Like, I didn’t want to go near a green screen for a while after Doctor Who. Then, I did Victoria three weeks after I left, and I’ve never really allowed myself to explore other characters and stories. Not to mention, after The Cry, I didn’t want to touch another psychological thriller, and I was getting so many of those parts. So, there was a definite craving for me to have different experiences. I feel that so much of the beauty and the challenge come from trying to understand someone else’s psychology; trying to inhabit someone that you don’t understand from the outset, or feels far away from you – that’s always a real draw in for me.

Well, I wouldn’t even say that there’s a particular method. Sometimes, it’s about which script lands on your desk at which time. I’m very instinctive from the page – it takes so much commitment every time. You have to really find those strong instincts when it comes to finding the right next thing. However, it’s hard to be brave as well, in terms of the decision-making, because often, it means you have to turn things down to wait for the right thing, which is scary.

That being said, repetition is uninteresting to me, and playing someone close to myself, I don’t enjoy so much either. Like, I didn’t want to go near a green screen for a while after Doctor Who. Then, I did Victoria three weeks after I left, and I’ve never really allowed myself to explore other characters and stories. Not to mention, after The Cry, I didn’t want to touch another psychological thriller, and I was getting so many of those parts. So, there was a definite craving for me to have different experiences. I feel that so much of the beauty and the challenge come from trying to understand someone else’s psychology; trying to inhabit someone that you don’t understand from the outset, or feels far away from you – that’s always a real draw in for me.

If you’re working from a book or an adaptation, you have to build your own life around all those tiny details. With Marie-Andrée and Queen Victoria, I’ve almost been able to get to know them like companions, I seem to have been playing characters with diaries, which are such amazing research to dig into, just to read their own handwritten words. When I was younger, I loved history so much. For Victoria, when I walk around Kensington Palace, you can imagine Queen Victoria running down the steps in her shoes. You can stand at the moment, where she locked eyes with Albert, and saw him for the first time ever. You can exist in that space. Then being in Bangkok for The Serpent, and trying on wigs for Marie-Andrée, or when you’re on the run with [Charles] in the car … I do love playing real people; I mean, I’d be terrified to play a real person if they were still alive (laughs). But I love delving into the research, and recreating something that really happened. There’s something about your imagination really coming to life; it just feels really exciting somehow.

Yeah, I know! It’s gone really quick (laughs). But I’m really proud of Doctor Who. I feel like I’ve joined a family, and that never does go away.

Yeah, I feel like I came into it at the right time: getting into it with [the late] John Hurt and David [Tennant] in that episode, but also, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi. It was a playground, where you were able to live in your imagination, with the whimsical big adventure storytelling. I was just talking about it recently, how you take for granted that it’s really normal every day to arrive and film in a spaceship one day, and then in a castle the next, and then you’re in the 1920s another day, or in the Victorian era—how quick and fast things change in every episode. There are not many jobs that give you those opportunities. So yeah, it was a really special time, and I’ll always have very fond memories of it in my heart.

Matt, I have always said, was like working with a tornado, whereas Peter’s Doctor very much came into the room. They were both completely different Doctors, but watching how they work with such spontaneity, it was a real privilege every day, being in a rehearsal room with them, and seeing them turn the dialogues in their heads. They have to be so mercurial as The Doctor. Often the dialogue, the way the rhythms are structured, and it’s all so kind of bonkers, it’s almost like being in the theatre.

It was mainly just them making fun of me like a little sister (laughs). For Matt-this is something that’s similar with Tahar as well, he taught me to freefall in every scene. How to throw everything you’ve prepped before on-set, and just be there and be present, and allow yourself to freefall. I wasn’t so used to it at that point [with Matt], but when you do get to that point, it’s the most exhilarating part of the job. That was what I often had with Tahar in The Serpent; just being alive. At the same time, when you treat every take like it’s the beginning of something that you don’t know what happens next, there’s that little bit of fear as well. That’s something that Peter taught me a lot: because you don’t know what’s going to happen next, it keeps you present and in the moment.

Um, I don’t know. I want escapism right now, something mythical or imaginary. I’ve never really done that, actually. Something like a mythology series or—where else do I want to be? I think, Cleopatra, the Roman times, somewhere like that.