I would often go on as myself, when I wasn't working. And the first time I went on as myself, two people came up and asked me what I was doing and who I was.

We are a very close family, and I love them very much, but I'm definitely the odd one out. I live a completely different kind of life style. I always was different. I felt like a fish out of water; I really never knew who I was.

When children arrive, or when some crisis occurs, couples don't have the resources to deal with it because they've been so busy getting on with their lives. They haven't learned how to sit down and discuss things.

My mother and father are still together after forty something years. I lived in one place till I was 6. I lived in another place from when I was 6 till I was 17.

But then I got a job selling coffee at the York Theatre, and when I met theatre people, something clicked. I felt comfortable with them; I felt like myself. I decided to go to drama school based just on that feeling. I had never done any acting.

I've always thought if you watch the performance and you don't know about the person, then you only see the performance.

Yes, I was slightly outside everything when I was growing up. My mother jokes that I was exchanged at birth. She brought us up to have traditional values. She was absolutely not part of the '60s generation.