Well, I'd never done an animated movie before, which is why I was so excited about doing it. It was one of the little boxes as an actor that I wanted to tick off. I wanted to do an animated film. So, after my mum got over the fact that I was never going to play Shrek's sister, this was the nearest I was going to get!

We have a house in Umbria that we bought just before we went to America. That meant we couldn't go there as often as we thought, but now we're back, we're going to start using it more. I love the light, the countryside, the language and the fact that children are accepted everywhere. The Italians get passionate about everything, too.

I always knew I wanted to be an actor, certainly from the age of eight or nine. I think when you know what you want to do, you're very lucky because you've got a focus.

I just wanted to be an actress. It never occurred to me that I could become famous, because I'm not one of those people who's automatically going to be the lead. I always saw myself as the mate.

I don't even think places like the National Youth Theatre (NYT) are necessarily about wanting to be an actor when you grow up. They're about meeting people from different backgrounds and different religions and different cultures, and mixing with people that you wouldn't ordinarily meet.

I think that children that are acting are always pretty savvy anyway because you're conducting yourself around adults a lot of the time, aren't you? But there is this worry now that children just want to be famous.

Mind you, if a blockbuster movie was offered, I wouldn't say no. I can do accents - I don't always have to be Scottish.