There was still an element in acting, certainly for my dad, of like, "This is lunacy." But then once my parents could tell that I was serious, it was like, "Okay then."

If you want an honest dialogue, you can't criticize someone for what they say. You can't teach someone to think in a certain way.

My mum was an actor until she started having children. I was the first child, so in a way I was the end of her acting career, which hopefully she's forgiven me for. She's still watches my show every week. It's funny because I didn't grow up in a household that felt like a theatrical household. My dad did a normal job and my mum had given up. But when I decided to try and do it - it wasn't the most alien concept.

I can think of a handful of auditions where the director has literally said, "That is the opposite of what I think." But it's really good to be honest and have that dialogue. I don't think you should be criticized though.

I wasn't particularly prolific at sport, and I could get by at school, but I wasn't going to win any prizes. Suddenly people were slapping me on the back and saying that I was funny and talented. So I just knew that it felt good to be appreciated, basically. Whenever I got an opportunity to do some acting I did a little bit more.

If you want to have the right to have that conversation with your agent - "I know you sent it to me, I know you like it, but I just really think it's terrible" - you need to have the full details about script. You don't want to be in that situation where your agent says, "What about after the first 20 pages where it turns into a psychedelic musical?" And you're like "What? I thought it was an action-rom!"

My first professional audition - god, I've never told anybody about this - was for a test commercial, I think it was for Xbox. It involved me getting kidnapped by a granny who wanted to play the Xbox. It was very weird and I definitely had no idea what I was doing. I actually got the gig. It wasn't a commercial; it was what directors did when they wanted to show the company what they would do with a commercial.