Cynthia Nixon insists it makes ''perfect sense'' for her to play Emily Dickinson in 'A Quiet Passion'.

The 50-year-old actress admits she was surprised director Terence Davies - who previously declared himself ''appalled'' by 'Sex and the City' - wanted her to portray the reclusive American poet in his biopic because she had previously had a terrible audition for him.

She recalled: ''I'd auditioned for him back in 2007 and I could barely get a line out without him correcting me, so I couldn't believe it when he sent me the script. Then again, if someone was going to write a lead for me, this one made perfect sense.''

Cynthia is unsure if she has much in common with the 19th century poet, though she thinks Emily was a feminist in her own way.

She told Stella magazine: ''She was also a feminist, I guess. Although I don't think Emily would have thought of herself that way. She was such an individualist, so she wouldn't have wanted to align herself with any political movement. And you couldn't be a feminist at that time without thinking it was important to be given the right to vote. I assume she would have been in favour of that, but she wasn't a political person.''

But the actress was fascinated by the poet's introspective nature.

She said: ''[She was] more interested in the flowering of her own mind and soul as opposed to any marker that society would have in terms of her success or popularity.''

Meanwhile, Cynthia admitted it was hard to ''move on'' from her most famous role, as 'Sex and the City's Miranda Hobbes.

She said: ''It was [hard to move on]. And we've moved on a bunch of times. We moved on after the series, then after the first movie and the second, and now I feel like I've gone so far that there's...[no going back].''