I had a dialect coach to get an American accent, and then another dialect coach to come off it a bit. There is something deep and mysterious in the voice when it isn't too high-pitched American.

I don't ever want to be hugely famous because I had a little taste of it after 'East Is East' and 'Bend It.'

Luckily my parents were not against my ambition, they've always been very supportive. But they were adamant that I went to university first.

When I started out in the '90s, there were not many people of color writing, directing and producing - hence, the roles for people of color were few and far between. There's still few roles in England [where she's from].

Since I was a baby my goal was to be on TV because film was just impossible - you never got any Asian women in Western cinema. I grew up wanting to be in 'East-Enders' because film wasn't even a dream. The community were very much like, 'How can you want to act? It's such a low-class profession.

I remember sitting in school and thinking, 'I don't know why I'm here, because I know I'm going to act and I know I'm going to America.'

I went out for a film where they wanted seven brothers and one sister, so I was there for half a day while they were waiting for 'Archie' to read for a boy I've had drivers come to pick me up in England looking for a blond, blue-eyed Scottish boy.