Being kind is the most important thing Ive ever been taught. Thats what my parents always told me - more important than ambition or success is being kind to people. The cornerstone of my life. What I aspire to is to be kind.

Every audition I get, I agonise over and I put everything I can into it.

When you do a film, you get picked up in a car, lunch is free. Theatre is really hard, and you get absolutely no money.

For a man, there's a big responsibility that comes with having a boy because men are made by their fathers. If you've got a good productive man around it's better. I have such a close relationship with my dad and that responsibility to produce a good man is something I think about.

Because I was always a fat child, I got fatter and fatter, and I ended up 18 stone and with a 40-inch waist.

I've done loads of things people have never seen, dramas on BBC4 and plays upstairs at the Royal Court and the Bush, and because I didn't go to drama school, they gave me an education.

I'm sure that my father becoming seriously ill when I was 14 had a lot to do with my going from chubby to fat.