And that is a hard route for a woman to come through. There's still a lot of roles that have to be conformed to. It's quite an old fashioned environment in a lot of ways.

My looks aren't something that come dazzlingly through in everything I do. I can be made to look one way or the other fairly easily... I am still not recognised on the street that much.

It used to be that I was always paranoid or a loser or something so there's usually something that you seem to associate yourself with at one time or another.

When I look in the mirror, I don't see my Dad, I see my grandmother. For a while it was my mother looking back at me. If only it was my Dad.

It's a very dangerous state. You are inclined to recklessness and kind of tune out the rest of your life and everything that's been important to you. It's actually not all that pleasurable. I don't know who the hell wants to get in a situation where you can't bear an hour without somebody's company.

I work with the options I have in front of me and my reasons for choosing a job can vary enormously depending on the circumstances. Sometimes I take a job because it's a group of people I'm dying to work with, and sometimes it can be a desire to shake things up a bit and not to take myself too seriously.

I absolutely don't care about my looks and I'm so used to them that I wouldn't change a thing. I would end up missing my defects.