Esme Creed-Miles

“I definitely struggle with a disillusionment towards my body and my gender.”

“I'm very conditioned by my surroundings, by the influences of social media, by the television I watch. And I always found, growing up, that even inspiring female characters or complex female characters in television and film, I often found that their complexity was actually just another facet of their sexuality.”

“The way that I work is I didn't go to drama school or anything like that so I have no choice but to be instinctual because I don't have a tool kit in the same way.”

“Everyone else went to drama school, and that teaches you how to dissociate from your character. I don't know any technique! I'm just acting by chance - and by connection.”

“Even if an actor might not nail the moves in a way than a stunt person might, I wanted to bring the character of 'Hanna' into everything that she did.”

“The hardest part is the nature of working in film and television; the hours are very tough.”

“What my parents have given me is what I would call a healthy entitlement.”

“You have your assigned sex but gender is more of a construct and I think one that is incredibly disillusioning and I think when we buy into those constructs then we start to maybe, unbeknownst to ourselves, cause real damage to our psyches.”

“I had a few months of physical prep where I was training six hours a day - I was doing an hour and a bit of yoga, I would do a couple hours of cardio and weight-lifting, and then I would do an hour or maybe two of martial arts training.”

“Young action heroines feel in service of male gaze, rather than being the full complexity of a human being.”

“I don't really embrace femininity.”

“I don't really leave my house. I'm a very introverted person. I don't like going out. I don't like parties.”

“The idea of women having a complete hold on their lives is still alien in a lot of places. So, it is important that we keep telling such stories where women are shown both physically and mentally powerful.”

“I had to learn martial arts.”

“Even as a kid I remember seeing 'Minority Report' and just crying my eyes out. It was horrible what was happening to her. That was my mum!”

“Obviously, for safety reasons, there's some stuff I can't do, but fighting is more than just about nailing the moves accurately, to sort of pull off the stunt sequence. It's also about bringing emotion to it and character.”

“I discovered my physicality, I discovered running, and endorphins, and the sort of amazing way that people are meant to move. And that's what's great about 'Hanna,' because she moves. She's human and she embodies all of that.”

“What is special about 'Hannah' is she's complex. She takes risks and she's smart, and she has a lot of love for people.”

“Even the basics of learning how to throw a good punch is very hard.”

“My parents are really, really talented and really good at what they do, so I've always learned from watching them. But their style is something that you can't really learn. They never went to drama school and neither did I.”