Nicola Walker

I took a long time after 'Curious' to find something I really wanted to do.

There's a really sweet spot with acting where you've finished a job, and you've got another one coming up in three or four months' time. That's my favourite period of unemployment.

The generation before me certainly told me that there would come a point when there were fewer parts, telling me to make hay while the sun shone. There was a time in my late thirties when I thought that it was something I had to get myself ready for, that things were going to slow down as I hit 40.

Spooks' was very much of its time and rather unique, so I was more than happy to be in that as a long-runner - because I think we won't have that sort of show again. I think it was really, really unusual.

Once I was asked to do celebrity rowing, where they taught people who had been to Oxford or Cambridge to row against each other. That sounded like too much hard work: really early mornings and having to be quite fit, which I'm not.

I don't have a preferred medium of work, but like all actors, I do like to move from one to the other if possible.

It's now become a joke in my family that as soon as I finish a job, I'm on a loop saying, 'I'm never going to work again' - it drives everyone mad!

Yes, I go a little bit crazy when I'm not working, which is an issue for me. My background is you go to work; that's what you do.

I just want to carry on doing high-quality work.

I wish someone had got hold of me and said, 'You know, children are really good fun. You will have a fantastic time, and you will still work.'