Sometimes when you're working on a period piece, there's this tendency to be nostalgic about the period and do everything superglamorous, which can end up looking cliche.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
To be honest, when I was growing up - I think it's because of Kate Winslet and 'Titanic' - I always wanted to do period.
We tend to do period stuff because it helps make it one step removed from boring everyday reality.
A lot of period dramas can appear quite arch to most people, stuffy.
It's deliberate that a lot of my films have been period pieces.
I've never done a period piece or a comedy, and that could be something truly different for me.
I'm a sucker for period pieces. There is always great opportunity for research and to delude yourself into feeling like you are in a different time and place.
I've never really worked out this thought, and I don't know if I'm really conscious of it, but I can see there's an attraction about writing about a period that's over and isn't going to change colour while you look at it.
When I do period work, I really like to read about the period as much as I like to look at pictures because sometimes the written word is much better at conveying what their lives were really like and how much they had and where their clothes came from. Because, a lot of time, people dressed in their Sunday best to pose for a picture.
The only reason I would stay away from a period piece is because sometimes the women are painted in a very stereotypical weakling, wallflower way - that's something I don't want to do. I want to show strength in the women I play, and a journey of some sort.
I come from theater, and doing period stuff is so whimsical and imaginative and so outside any frame of reference than I have ever had so I prefer that just in terms of fun factor.