I love team sports - they give me something to focus on rather than the fact that I can't breathe or my muscles are aching.

There are occasions when I've had beef, but I generally tend to avoid it, as a nod towards my parents' culture.

My mother had been an English teacher in India before she came to the U.K., and she taught me to read early on - not only in English, but in Hindi, too. My teachers didn't like the fact that I was reading more quickly than they were teaching, and as a consequence, I would sometimes get bored in class.

Good drama, challenging drama - and comedy for that matter - has a place in the daytime schedule.

If I go anywhere where there are people who vaguely look like me, there is always that feeling of, 'Actually I do look quite similar to everyone else.' At moments like that, I become very, very British. My accent gets more clipped, and I stride around as if I've got an empire.

I make terrible jokes every time I go into a hospital. I think it's a defence mechanism.

It is better to give blood but receive cash than the other way around.