Hermione is so close to who I am as a person that I've never really had to research a role. I'm literally rediscovering what it means to be an actress.
That's what I like about acting. When you're preparing for a role, you do your research, and the bonus is you get to learn these skills. Now, it's on to whatever the next thing is I have to learn.
One of my favorite parts of being an actress is being a detective.
The interesting thing with acting, actually, is that you get to be so many different people that you get to do so much research on so many different things that I've learned so much about brain surgery and about astrophysicist-type of things and traveling to amazing parts of the world.
I am not an enormous believer in research being the be-all and end-all. I get suspicious when I read about actors spending six months in a clinic, say, in order to play someone who is sick.
I had a mini marathon once I landed the role - going from 'Splendor in the Grass' to 'Bonnie and Clyde' to 'Shampoo' to 'Reds.' I watched them back to back. I found that when you're in the mood for 'Reds,' you're not in the mood for 'Shampoo.'
With most movies I've done before, I've done a lot of preparation. I've known about them long before [shooting], and I've prepped and changed my body and done research, and all the things you could imagine.
I did a lot before [being cast] because I knew how important it would be for playing somebody real, or attempting to - to show the team [the role] was something I would be fascinated to do. I read a couple of biographies and I watched everything I could find [about princess Margaret].
The thing is that, often if you have time to research a role, sometimes it's hard to know exactly where to start.
For any role, I pretty much always go to the script, first and foremost.
The only thing that I always do - is once I've taken on a job, even just to do one scene in a movie, I ask myself, "What's happened the moment the kid was born, until page one of the script?" To answer that simple question, I have an infinite amount of work to do. And I enjoy that part as much as I enjoy any part of making movies.
I didn't sit around thinking, 'I'd love to play Luke Cage,' but when the character was presented, I did my research, and I was just like, 'This is a real gift. He's a great character, and I'm happy to have a chance to take a crack at him.'
I don't think I do that much to prepare for roles in general.
In the time between when you first read a script and are offered the role and the time when you begin to shoot, I really love putting in the time and work on that and getting a solid backstory to a character and researching all that I can about what that person does for a vocation or their upbringing or where they're from.
I wasn't a huge fan of the comic book, but I definitely was of the cartoon series. I wasn't much for sitting around and reading as a kid, I preferred to be outside running around and playing sports, but I was absolutely thrilled to get the role of Colossus. I don't think I realised how popular the character was until I got the role and started doing some research; it was then that I really fell in love with the character of Colossus myself.
I figure out who I'm playing opposite, and I really do study them.
I love my job. It's such a privilege to be able to play such complicated characters. Growing up, I wanted to be a billion different things. I realized in order for that to happen, I don't have to be them all because the characters I want to play require such research and such a transformation to make that work - that's something that I love doing.
I have an acting coach that I work with on everything that I do. The thing about my preparation process for getting ready for a role is I have sex with as many people as I can.
