I looked around one stage school when I was maybe nine. It just scared the bejesus out of me. I was incredibly open, and the girls seemed fierce and determined.

I told my parents I wanted to be an actor and they were getting ready for a life of unemployment so they're just happy I'm in work!

I came out of my mum's stomach going, 'I want to be an actor!'

My dad took me for an audition once, to show me, OK, you want to be a child actor, this is what its like. I sang a folk song about donkeys on this West End stage with this big director, and there was a queue of 200 girls all singing Memory. I was terrible. Terrible.

Sometimes I feel like the kid left out - the weirdo with the silver hair that no one likes to talk to.

You can't come out of drama school and think, 'It's all going to be amazing.' You have to expect to work in a bar for at least five years and be a waitress for maybe two!

The calibre of TV's changing. It's becoming much more epic. To rival film, definitely.