I've been a single parent for a long time. It reminds me of being a waitress. As you walk back to the kitchen, requests come at you from all sides. You're doing the job of two - you have to be highly organised.

At the beginning of my acting career, I worked for two seasons at the RSC and spent a lot of time in the Cotswolds exploring Shakespeare's countryside. It's my kind of English landscape, with its tiny villages and one-room thatched pubs.

Im mad keen on recycling because Im worried about the next generation and where all this waste were producing is going. It has to stop. I wash out my plastic containers and recycle envelopes, everything I possibly can.

I try to live my life as honestly as I can, and the last thing I want is to pretend to be something I'm not. To pretend to myself I am a sex symbol would somehow be dishonest. I'd feel, in my heart, that I were behaving artificially and that's the last thing I want to do.

Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, the higher your profile, the more castable you are in TV dramas.

I come from a strong matriarchal line. I was raised by Gypsy, her sister, Mary, and my maternal grandmother. The result of not having my father live with us meant that, when it came to understanding the opposite sex, it was like working without a map.

People ask me how I manage without a man in the same tone they might ask someone how they're doing with just one lung, but it's not like that at all.