No, I always wanted to be an actress.

I think you know what you're up against when you take on a piece that you know is going to involve dragging up a lot emotions - you can end up being deeply immersed in gloom.

It always interests me how obsessed people are about age.

I have been acting for 32 years now and I feel so lucky to be able to have done exactly what I wanted to do.

I still love coming into work everyday after so many years working as an actress. I've been working more or less continuously and I find I have to really want to do the project to make it work because you have to put such an enormous amount of effort into it.

I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.

I have nothing against people having work done, it is when I hear tale of girls of 16 queuing up to get bigger breasts, that is when I despair.