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.

As we have more women in power, so the plays and the TV dramas are reflecting what's happening.

Every time we moved on, I joined a different class in a different school with different girls until, aged 13, my father had taken the decision to pull me out of school altogether. Everything I needed, he reasoned, could be found within the rich language of Shakespeare's plays at which, by then, I was something of an old hand.

I did try fillers once. Don't ever have fillers because when your cheekbones are high, it's chipmunk time.

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 don't think, until you've actually lost somebody you really love, that you can go through that door that allows you to be grown-up.

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