I was quite straight-laced. I was quite academic until I was about 14 and then I went to boarding school where I had the opportunity to continue to be very academic, but got less interested in it and became more involved in acting. And then when I was applying for universities I used a couple of places on my UCAS form to apply for drama school without telling anyone... but didn't get into drama school. But that was the most rebellious thing I did.
I was quite frustrated by school and found solace in going to the drama studio, doing stupid voices, and being an idiot. I then went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama and signed with a great agent in my third year.
I went to NYU drama school, so I was a very serious actress. I used to do monologues with a Southern accent, and I was really into drama and drama school. And then, in my last year of drama school, I did a comedy show, and the show became a big hit on campus.
By junior high, I was a horrible student. But during my sophomore year of high school, I did have a fabulous English teacher, and I would go to school just for her class and then skip out afterwards. That's actually when I started writing, although I didn't think of it then as something I might someday do.
I went to drama college in England - the Central School of Speech and Drama, in London. I was there for not quite two years, then I got Star Wars.
I made a very concerted decision to go to drama school in the United States. But I did have the opportunity to go to Britain's Central School of Speech and Drama, and my dad and I had a few tense words about that. He wanted me to go to British drama school.
I did a lot of acting at school and university, then I went to drama school. It was quite a normal route.
I found myself at Cambridge, loved my course, and met these amazing people who got me heavily involved. I presumed I would have to go to drama school, but I did a play with my uni friends, who were doing lots of pub theatre in London, and through that met my agent. She said 'Don't go to drama school. I'll get you a job' and two weeks later she did.
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I started studying theater in school, and then I got into drama school at, like, 19, and it was a national drama school in Montreal, and so it was just you and nine other students for three years, and it was really intense.
I always loved drama at school. We had a great drama teacher at my secondary school, and she made drama feel cool. She inspired me, and then I did the National Youth Theatre in London.
I went to Carnegie Mellon for a year and a month or two, and then I dropped out because I got a movie. I didn't anticipate ever leaving school - I was a really serious drama student - and then that happened, and my life sort of took a turn.
I couldn't afford to go to drama school in London. Then I met with the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and I fell in love with the city. It was one of the few schools that offered me a place. It didn't do me any harm.
I felt quite confident - when you come out of drama school you feel like you're on top of everything. I always tell people to go to drama school even if they've already done movies or whatever because the way you encounter content is so different.
I didn't act professionally before going to drama school. I don't know if I had the confidence. I didn't think I'd get in when I first auditioned for drama school, and then I did.
I was taken out of school by my dad when I was 11 and lived in Mexico City, then later in Paris. I went with him to excavate in Bolivia and Peru. I never finished high school. I was a straight F student anyway. My father admitted to me later that he'd thought I would come to no good.