I had a mother who was very emotionally demanding, wanting to be the centre of attention. As they say in EastEnders, she thought it was all about 'er. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on.

As a fairly innocent teenager, growing up in a village in Wales, I just thought, "God, I would like to go and hang about Soho and write great poetry and try to avoid drinking myself to death."

I got quite cross when I heard about Emma Thompson adapting 'Sense and Sensibility.' It was absolutely childish of me, but I thought, 'I should be doing that. They didn't even ask me.' Some mistake, surely.

I know that a ridiculous number of classic serials have been commissioned, and that reviews show a reaction against them. The critics seem fed up.

Look at Jane Austen. Her characters derive in a reasonably straight line from fairy tales.

The writer in movies is about as low as you can get and you really are a hired hand. You are paid a lot of money to be treated like dirt.

Most actors hate readthroughs - they're exposing themselves before they're ready to, and before they've bonded. But I love them because they give us all the first inkling of what the whole show is going to be like, how each part affects every other part, and we won't see that again until it's all edited together.