To have the kind of success I have had is really amazing, and I am incredibly grateful.
I would say only be an actress if you genuinely feel the calling, because it’s a tough profession.
Only do acting, if you don’t want to do anything else. And know that it’s a tough journey with a lot of rejection along the way. You have to have a lot of self-belief.
When I have finished a job, done all the promotion, and it’s been received well. Then I can allow myself the luxury of a break, and chilling out with my family and friends, and taking a nice break knowing I’ve done a good job.
I’m always interested in telling stories that have a message because I really do believe that film is so powerful.
I am always interested in affecting people in some way, making them think about particular areas of history that they have never thought about or that they may have thought about in one way and then changing their view.
Mandela is this extraordinary individual who can inspire the world. Instead of wanting revenge after being brutalized, he showed the world how to forgive.
Powerful women are the most interesting to play.
It’s more instinctive to want revenge, but we are also capable of immense amounts of forgiveness and love and a compassion that extends even to those who have brutalized us.
I’d like to believe that I would be able to give in the same way Mandela did, but in reality, I don’t know whether that is true. It is much more likely that I would be left with an immense sense of injustice and immense desire for revenge.
People have very strong opinions about how their national icons should be played.
When you film in Africa, it’s almost like a character in and of itself because it is so beautiful and has this special magic that I’ve never experienced anywhere else. There is something so incredibly beautiful about the light...
If you educate children, then they are capable of so much – you empower them, you give them choices, and you enable them to create the lives that they dream for themselves.
Without education, you really can’t dream as a child.
Education opens the door to everything in terms of having a career and an impact on society and not being a slave to your job, really.
One of the saddest aspects for me about filming in South Africa was that the real inequalities are still very much in place – and those are economic inequalities.
I never make suggestions. I really don’t. I know a lot of actors who get a part and then they dissect it and they want to change it and they want to add stuff. I’m always amazed and so impressed by actors who do that.
Mom’s a writer, so I grew up reading scripts and I have a real respect for them and I know how much thought goes into creating a role, so I’m always interested to find out what was the thought process of the writer and how best can I convey it rather than trying to change it to suit myself.
I can’t impersonate someone. That is not what I do. I can only take someone’s essence and create a character out of that.
It is great to be a part of big-budget movies, but it is harder to feel like you are contributing, in the sense that it has such big machinery behind it.
You don’t want to just preach to people; you want to get them emotionally involved, and I think you do that with a wonderful human story about one person’s struggle.