I think that when something happens when you're growing up, like a death or divorce, it does open the world slightly because things aren't as straightforward.

My agent called me up and said, 'There is a tremendous female lead in the new 'Star Wars' film, and I think you're really going to like it.' The opportunity to play someone determined, who's trying to find her skills as a leader; to be in a fantasy movie; to be able to do a leading female role in a film of that scale - that's very, very rare.

My mother was in the kind of late-'60s, early-'70s origins of female emancipation. And she was very much like, 'You're not going to be defined by how you look. It's going to be about who you are and what you do.'

I just always want to play people. I don't want it to be necessarily that you relate to the character as female or male, but that you relate to them as a person. That's the driving force.