Quotes from Rebecca Hall

I don't want to constantly be making sacrifices. It feels like it's really difficult for the films I dream about making to turn up.

If I sat around thinking about acting all day, I'd lose my mind.

I did 'Iron Man' because I was curious about those massive movies that were taking over the summers every year, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

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.

There are people all over the world who like to write fan letters in the voice of their pet: 'Hello, my name is Fifi and I'm a labrador and I think you're great. Paw paw!'

I don't think that anyone can really understand anything until it's understood on a cellular, emotional level.

My childhood was very colourful, and I am very good friends with both my parents. We have no secrets.

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

There are people all over the world who like to write fan letters in the voice of their pet: 'Hello, my name is Fifi and I'm a labrador and I think you're great. Paw paw!'

I don't know how you make a living without a few personal compromises.

My friends have noticed that if I suddenly go through a couple of months' unemployment, there seems to be a correlation that I don't ever tend to wear the same outfit twice. There will be such strange combinations of clothes because I'm probably a bit creatively stifled, so it's coming out in my wardrobe.

It doesn't matter how much polite self-deprecating fluff you have on the outside if you don't have a steely something in the middle that says, 'You know what, I'm actually really, really good at this, and this is what I can do, and I'm going to do it.'

I always look for contradiction in a character.

It's not like I particularly have an interest in creepiness for creepy's sake.

I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.

Shopping is a bit of a relaxing hobby for me, which is sometimes troubling for the bank balance.

I'm a very private person. I barely tell my friends what's going on half the time, so the idea that I should then talk to the world about what is going on seems anathema to me. People can say what they want. I'm not going to change anyone's mind.

I want to try to make difficult people somehow relatable.

I think I have a job, which is to present a character in a story and entertain you and divert you with my work - that's it.

I think it's a bit short-sighted to play any character and not explore, in some respects, the way they act when things get really bad.

I was a really pretentious teenager.

It's not often you get female characters who don't fit into a box.

You sit there, and you argue and you argue, and you sort of bully the hell out of the text until you're quite sure what it's revealing, and then you perform it.

Lentil dhal is the only thing I can cook.