I'm sure people in the business have said: She's too old for that part. I don't hear about it because your agent protects you from those negative things.

It was in India that I started my acting career, courtesy of my parents, long before I set foot on stage in England. They headed a company of travelling players performing Shakespeare up and down the land.

I hope to start enjoying flirting again when I'm 70, like my mother did.

I think very few people do find a relationship where, every moment of every day, everything they do comes together. That's why, in a nutshell, everyone loved Barbara in 'The Good Life.' She was the perfect partner. It was a formula. She wasn't glamorous. She wasn't clever. But she was a good partner. That's too easy, too perfect.

So many roles for women demand that you make the audience fall in love with you or sympathise with you.

When I was much younger, I sometimes felt rejected by feminists because of an image that I sold because it paid the bills. Any fool could tell my hair is dyed.

I can be very difficult if people are not professional, or lazy - or the opposite, which is take themselves too seriously.