Only now has Phillips' off-kilter disposition brought her a lead role. Could that be why she's acting so anxious?
Sally Phillips is anxious. Though it's not the sort of anxiousness that attended the making of her first film as a writer, the recent Brit indie The Decoy Bride. "Horrific!" she says, eyes agape and soul still raw, of the romcom which starred David Tennant and Kelly Macdonald. "It was like having every toenail pulled out – at every stage. And the pain just keeps coming." We'll come back to that.