I enjoy doing things that involve research because it's part of what I enjoy about acting.

I have a daughter, and fairies meant a lot to her growing up.

Although my family - parents and sister - all work in the personnel management business, their real passion is performing, amateur operatic societies and so on.

By the time you are 30 you are still trying to make your 15-year-old self happy but you are a different person. You need to be brave and let go of that.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.

But obviously, things have changed in many ways since the '50s, when the show is started, in terms of sexuality, and how much access we have to images of it and information about it. But, the same problems always apply. It doesn't matter whether we know a lot more about sex now or if there's a lot more access to it. The same problems of intimacy, of dealing with other people, of connecting and being vulnerable with other people, which is what the show is ultimately about, still applies now, I think.

The first job I ever did in the theatre, I was supposed to be a genius piano player. I couldn't play the piano, but you just sit there at a piano like you're playing, and suddenly all this amazing music comes out and the audience believes you can do it. It's the same with computers. I love scenes where there are people yanking at monitors, "yes I'll put you through now," and you know they're just doing that. But you can look brilliant at all this technology. I love it.