As soon as I moved to New York, I experienced Hurricane Irene and then Hurricane Sandy hit me in quite a big way. I had 12 days without any electricity or any water. The thing that I realized the most from it was that we've become so dependent on technology. There's so much accessibility to information that suddenly when everything is cut off, you're completely lost, and you start asking deeper and more profound questions - how short life is, and how grateful we should be for things.

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 feel like I have one foot in New York, one foot in London and one foot in India. But it's important to me to invest time with family.

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

I loved eating and I did put on weight. I never actually felt fat until I started going for castings, for auditions.

When I was younger I was fat. I was never conscious of it and was content with who I was because I was so loved. My mother never told me to lose weight and my father doted on me, but my agent told me. I tried, but I loved Indian food too much.

You can have all the agents and publicists in the world but no one's ever going to give you 110 per cent like someone who loves you.