There's nothing nicer than coming back to your village, where people like my mum's friends take the mick out of me. I prefer that to the craziness of Hollywood.

I had a great drama teacher, and he sort of made out drama school as this incredibly difficult thing to get into: 6,000 people apply every year, and some of the schools only have 12 places. It's a phenomenally difficult thing to get into. And that excited me - I wanted that challenge.

I always wonder whether I'll get treated differently with a different accent.

I went to an all-boys school and hated feeling like one of the crowd.

My time with my family is a priority.

There have been trade-offs every day, every month, every year. There's a lot that I missed and I do have regrets in that area. But I have been able to bring to my family the richness of being a journalist.

I think that it would be hard to find a family that didn't have a secret in it somewhere, and sometimes we know about them, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we have an inkling that there's something hidden, but I think that it touches everybody's life.

I grew up in Bushwick, and I lived with my mom. She was a single parent with three kids. I've got an older brother and a younger sister. We all were pretty active kids, but school wasn't particularly our strong suit; we were always good at other things.