When I came into the acting profession, it was quite hierarchical. You didn't sit at the same table as the leading actor. Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud... these were very, very intimidating and powerful people.

You have to go through the long, painful process of learning techniques to be able to recognize a "good accident" or a "bad accident."

I am quite spiritual. I believed in the fairies when I was a child. I still do sort of believe in the fairies. And the leprechauns. But I don't believe in God.

My dad's Russian. My mother's English. I would say my bottom half is Russian.

I was part of the first generation of girls and women to be educated and go to grammar school even if we didn't have much money. Then that generation went, 'OK, great', and went into medicine or the police, and hit this wall of discrimination from older men who hadn't caught up.

When I came into the acting profession, it was quite hierarchical. You didn't sit at the same table as the leading actor. Sir Laurence Olivier, Sir John Gielgud... these were very, very intimidating and powerful people.

The important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they've beginning to have with autism.