I like to think I'm a listener, and I'm fascinated by observing people - I suppose you just lock that in.

I was on holiday recently and I came home to find that one of the papers here had 'bikini'd' me on the beach. I was wearing a grossly unflattering costume and they had published photographs of me taken from behind. I looked dreadful. I went into our local newsagent and bought up every copy.

Being an actor is an extension of telling a story and I loved story telling as a child.

I couldn't imagine a home without animals.

I have been acting for 32 years now and I feel so lucky to be able to have done exactly what I wanted to do.

I have nothing against people having work done, it is when I hear tale of girls of 16 queuing up to get bigger breasts, that is when I despair.

I have sleepless nights before press days.

I think some people think that being on television makes you a sitting duck, but you have the right to remain private.

If I want to run around a field when I'm 70, I would like to have that option.

It always interests me how obsessed people are about age.

No, I always wanted to be an actress.

Running gave me a focus to start looking after myself, to eat properly, and focus on building up my strength.

What a stupid attitude we have in this country to personal stories.

Whatever I'm doing, I try to give it everything.

But I didn't really enjoy my secondary education that much, probably because I am a very physical person and don't enjoy sitting at a desk all day. I just dragged myself through GCSE and A Levels, so it suited me very much to go on to drama school, which was very active.

Forgotten was presented to me by the drama department at LWT as a concept and I found it immediately intriguing and very powerful. I was completely led by the power of the piece and its dramatic potential.

I always start from scratch with a character - they're never based on anyone else. You get ideas of what people look like, and I'm a great people watcher. You can draw inspiration from people.

I could suddenly see the pressures all around; these endless magazines and cheap reality TV programmes poking at women, humiliating us for every flaw. It makes me so angry. I really wonder what it is we are doing to ourselves, because I do think women can be the worst ones for picking each other apart.

I still love coming into work everyday after so many years working as an actress. I've been working more or less continuously and I find I have to really want to do the project to make it work because you have to put such an enormous amount of effort into it.

I think you know what you're up against when you take on a piece that you know is going to involve dragging up a lot emotions - you can end up being deeply immersed in gloom.