I'm guilty of it myself, sort of thinking, 'Classic novels: snoozeville.' But there is a huge amount of wonderful material.

'Pride And Prejudice' takes place in a similar period to 'Vanity Fair,' and yet there's a huge difference between Jane Austen and Thackeray.

Period drama is such a huge umbrella term: it seems to cover everything from Claudius to something from the 1920s.

If you are playing repertoire material, you're stuck. There's not huge amounts you can do.

You can finish the day's filming or the whole shoot or watch something months later and think you could have done it so much better. It's frustrating.

I've never, ever done a piece of work - and can't imagine doing a piece of work - when I've thought, 'I was pretty perfect in that.'