Q: Emily, not only did I love this film but I loved watching all of the characters and trying to keep up with what was going on. In order to play Elsie (a maid), did you have to prepare in any way or learn about the different class system?
A: No, not really. The script was very thorough and told you what the world was really like. As for the preparation stuff, like, I spent six months scrubbing floors and shovelling coal, I mean what can you do? The film was really more about sexual shenanigans and bitchiness and that comes to me very naturally!

Q: Oh, that's another interview! What was it like when you got on this set?
A: Lords, dames — all the Knights of the Round Table so to speak. It was terrifying, really intimidating. There was a particular scene where everybody is sitting around the dining room table and I have to do this quite dramatic thing and I remember just looking around the table thinking, either I leave now or just say to myself, come on, you know what you're doing. But then I said to myself, no I can't do it, let me go. It was pretty intimidating, but they were great. Actors are just like kids, really, there was a lot of messing about, a lot of bad behaviour, we had a laugh.

Q: You of course worked on the film The Cradle Will Rock with Tim Robbins who directs much in the same style as Robert Altman. What in your mind makes Bob Altman such a unique director and why does everyone want to work with him?
A: Being around what he does is special. You can't really say specifically this is his way of doing things. It's like making a sauce, he just chucks all the ingredients in, turns the heat up and stands back and waits for it to bubble. That's how it felt and because everyone feels enlivened by that you feel like it's your job to make something of this and everyone is really being inventive and bringing things to it. That's kind of how he works.

Q: You've made so many different types of movies since hitting us with that brilliant performance in Breaking the Waves. As an actor, what do you particularly look for in a script?
A: For me, the biggest thrill is when my agent calls up and says Robert Altman has been calling or Paul Thomas Anderson wants you in his film. When a great director wants you, it's kind for a nervous moment when you read the script because all you are thinking is please let it be good, but hell, I'm going to do it anyway. Sometimes there are people who push me in a different direction or make me do something different. It's like with Gosford Park. Robert Altman cast me in a role that no casting director would ever think of doing. Elsie is a character that was kind of sassy and selfish and people kind of think of me as sort of wide-eyed and unhinged and I'm not!