Tuppence Middleton

I liked to be in my own company, so when I came home from school, I'd just go up to my room and hang out by myself. I wouldn't really have friends over or go to see friends much.

After doing 'War and Peace,' I suddenly got lots of seductress roles. It's easy to put people into a category after you've seen them in one thing that you feel fits with them. But I'm trying to make a conscious decision to do different things.

I acted as a hobby when I was a child but wasn't initially very good at it.

Since Kate Middleton came around, some people think I'm related to her, but unfortunately, there's no connection.

I just enjoyed telling stories. I enjoyed watching films and reading and becoming someone else. I spent a lot of time on my own when I was younger; I enjoyed my own company and still do, so it was a source of escapism.

Period dramas seem to take actors to the next level because they do so well in America.

A lot of TV can be linear and cinematic and formulaic. What's to say that people can't be creative and surreal - and push boundaries? You can look at a piece of art and not necessarily know what it means or what the artist intended by it. It's the effect it has on you.

I always really loved Russian literature, and I think Tolstoy's writing is full of a sense of melancholy and humanity, so it seems really modern.

Now, if I speak to people who want to act, I say, 'Don't give yourself a back-up.' If I had gone to university, I wouldn't be doing this job now. Having that pressure and no other option just made me work that much harder for it, because you have no other choice.