I came to Los Angeles and did auditions for television. I made a terrible mess of most of them and I was quite intimidated. I felt very embarrassed and went back to London. I got British television jobs intermittently between the ages of 23 and 27, but it was very patchy.

I could never swim in the ocean after seeing Jaws.

I've always been more inclined to go out to work than carry on with academic studies.

I'm fairly competitive.

We moved to Ireland when I was two and we settled in Killarney, Co Kerry. Where we were living in Germany is very industrial and very grey and my parents wanted to have countryside around for my sister and I to grow up in.

It's more interesting isn't it, if I've got a hedonistic dark side?

We're all curious about a lot of things.