I so find Harold Pinter and David Mamet's writing to be exciting, and obviously there aren't that many female - at least with Mamet, there aren't that many good female roles. But I always thought it would be interesting to play one of the guy roles.

At the heart of any drama, there's conflict. When you are acting, you get to play out the confrontations you want to have in real life but can't. Or the emotions that you would want to have in real life, but sometimes they are too difficult.

I'm terrified at the prospect of Donald Trump becoming president. I think he's disgusting, he's offensive. I think that it would be embarrassing for our country to have him sit down with world leaders and try and have a conference or even take a photo op. So we'll see what happens, but it's a very pivotal time in the U.S.

Even after such milestones as Kathryn Bigelow winning an Oscar, there still seem to be few women in leadership roles.

A puppet, for example, is just a piece of wood, a couple of rivets, but put them together, and if you know how to do it, and the audience's imagination joins in with this, then a miracle will come out of that machine. That is what we and the audience do in the theatre - we create miracles in that space.

There is no living African writer who has not had to, or will not have to, contend with Achebe's work. We are either resisting him - stylistically, politically, or culturally - or we are writing toward him.

I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.

The whole area of creativity is constipated and frightened.