It's always a help when you have worked with someone as you've got to know them a bit already.

Once you get into your stride, the camera becomes like another person in the room. It's like being in a very small theatre where there is no getting away with anything because the audience is centimetres away from you.

I think politics can no longer be assigned to parliamentary activity and it probably never could be. But politics with a small p and the history of trade union movement really interests me.

I'm not very good with stills. I get all twitchy.

I was picked up on a London street by a model agent. She took me to her office and then sent me to Paris to work in shows. It was supposed to be two weeks, but I ended up living there with my Zimbabwean boyfriend. I made enough money modeling and acting in French movies to buy a nice flat.

Part of me misses the days when we have four channels in England and we were all talking about everything all the time.

I like working on stage because there's something very immediate about it, that interaction with an audience where you immediately hear their reaction, or feel them, whether they're with you.