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.

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.

The girl-next-door image is a sort of joke; for years, I couldnt get any roles other than as somebody dark.

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

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.