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Mother Firefly is the kind of character I've always wanted to play. She's larger than life, terribly tragic, and capable of a lot of love.

Crime is a very hard genre to feminise. If you have a female protagonist she is going to be looking after her mum when she gets older; she is going to be worried about her brother and sister; she will be making a living while bringing up kids.

There's something really unique about 'Orphan Black' is that it has a lot of female leads, so it's about a lot of women's stories, but it's not women's stories in terms of trying to find a guy or keep a guy; it's about entirely other things.

Horror and supernatural novels give you a lot of what you look for in a crime novel, just with a twist that was very fresh for me as a reader.

I read 'Rebecca' when I was a teenager and was swept away by the powerful voice, the gut wrenching suspense and the dark, twisted love story at its center.

She's lonely and wounded and very vulnerable and it really is a story about people at the heart of it all.

In terms of 'Beyond the Lights' and 'Belle,' they're definitely stories about identity. They're female empowerment stories. So I'm exploring that through my work.

Right away I think of two books - 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Rebecca' - and of just sinking into them as a young reader. I think they must have appealed not just to my romantic adolescent soul, but I suppose there's also an appealing darkness in both of them.

I kind of found a niche for myself after 'Firefly'. I found something that I enjoyed doing and that I did well, but as far as how I seek out a part, it's always different. It's always something that lights you on fire when you read it. It might be just one scene, it might be one line that defines the character for you.