You were nominated for your first Oscar for Atonement back in 2008, when you were 13. What do you remember about that time?
I remember the stress of trying to find a dress because I didn’t have a stylist. So we had to do all of that by ourselves, which was very stressful. To me, the Oscars at that stage was a TV show. It was something that I had grown up watching at home, and so I was very excited to be involved for that reason. I think my mom getting to meet John Travolta was huge, because my mom is a huge Saturday Night Fever fan. And she went to the cinema to see it 27 times, which is just too much. [Laughs]
You mentioned that after doing many scrappy indie films in your career, you would be open to doing a big studio movie. But I have to assume you must have passed on some franchise offers over the years.
I did. It’s no disrespect to the material, it was always just down to the role. I would have done something in a sort of big commercial film if the role was there. But a lot of the time, the stuff that was being offered to me was sort of like someone who is a bit of a bystander. And it just never interested me. I wanted to be right in the thick of it. And if I wasn’t being given the opportunity to do that in a big commercial sort of box office type film, then I was going to go do that in an independent movie where I could really flesh out a character.
Well, Bond villains have a lot of character.
There’s a lot to unpack there, you know? There’s a lot to work on, which I like. But that is what I do like about something like Bond in general, is that the characters are very interesting. And I do think there’s something kind of cool about having a female villain who wants to take him down and doesn’t just want to fall in love with him.
You’re working on a short film to direct. Can you tease what genre it is, what the story is exploring?
I mean, it’s a short movie, to be honest, like, who knows? I might get it completed and then be like, “Actually, that’s not what I want to do first.” There will be women in it—and potentially a dog.
Your dog?
I don’t know if Stella is professional enough to take on that role. They were trying to put her in Blitz, actually. I think she’d get bored or she might fall asleep. Stella’s a very chill dog, so I don’t know if she has what it takes to follow through with a performance.
Listen to Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast now.
