Quotes from Esme Creed-Miles

It's really tough, it's a very kind of cutthroat industry and you have to be prepared that you're not going to get the parts that you want.

I discovered my physicality, I discovered running, and endorphins, and the sort of amazing way that people are meant to move. And that's what's great about 'Hanna,' because she moves. She's human and she embodies all of that.

I was never a sporty kid. Then I discovered my physicality and running and endorphins.

If I'm being honest that's something that I think to myself every time I go on Instagram - 'Look how skinny she is, I wanna be that skinny', and it's horrible.

I never wanted to be an actress. Acting wasn't in my mind. It wasn't in my calculations.

I feel myself in ways to be the product of internalized male gaze.

I'm very conditioned by my surroundings, by the influences of social media, by the television I watch. And I always found, growing up, that even inspiring female characters or complex female characters in television and film, I often found that their complexity was actually just another facet of their sexuality.

I wish we did, in a way, grow up in the forest and we didn't all just post bikini pictures and work out just to look good.

Now I'm strong: I can run fast, I can lift weights, and that in itself is quite empowering, to have that physical strength. It changes my whole mental attitude.

In terms of actors and roles that I want to do in the future, most of those have been played by men. I mean Robert De Niro is my favorite actor of all time. That's the thing, it's not a woman, it's a guy.

I just love listening to music and talking about it, so my social media is mostly dedicated to talking about songs and stuff that interests me.

The whole thing of sexually objectifying yourself is really demoralizing and degrading as a human being, and it's something that men have never had to do, and it's something that 'Hanna' has never had to do.

I personally feel like the conversation around feminism has advanced a lot. People are starting to realize privileged white feminism isn't cutting it. We have to look at the holistic experience of all women, or assigned women, on the planet.

Everyone else went to drama school, and that teaches you how to dissociate from your character. I don't know any technique! I'm just acting by chance - and by connection.

It honestly affects my mental health, social media, on a really profound level. Because I'm constantly being bombarded with an image of femininity that I feel I have to adhere to. And I think there's a lot of pressure in this industry, as well, being constantly discriminated on your aesthetic appearance.

I don't really embrace femininity.

It's so liberating to just have absolutely no filter and say exactly what's on your mind because you don't know otherwise.

I thought 'Hanna' was an opportunity to explore a character whose femininity was so raw and unconditioned by the modern world.

Sometimes punching a bag for half an hour was pretty cathartic and pretty necessary.

As an actor, I had the most power than I've ever had before, because I was able to create and arc and pursue that idea fully, because as every new director that came on, no one knew 'Hanna' like I knew 'Hanna.' That is something that I knew inside me.

What was really special about 'Hanna' as a character is her pursuit of agency.

It's frustrating to see that people still get shocked when they see a woman doing action.

'Hanna' has grown up in wilderness. It highlights humanness and animal-ness in humans. She has an interesting take on gender and love.

It was so cool to be listening to, I don't know, some Cocteau Twins song while I was running through the Slovakian wilderness.