When I was first approached about doing an autobiography, I said, 'absolutely not.' But when I sat down, memories came pouring out. It wrote very quickly - I think there was an emotional impulse, because once I started in, the story itself carried me along. It was a very intense writing period and took a year and change to finish.

It's important always to have a sense of wonder.

I think everybody encounters difficulty. It's just more pitched in some people.

Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself.

Recovery is an ongoing project that is really discrete from everything else in my life. It allows me to be an agent, allows me to write, allows me to be married, allows me to be part of a family. The writing is not a support beam of recovery but a happy consequence of it.

Getting into the glamour industry was not an option for me. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get to this point. My family is not at all related to this industry.

In the U.K., my mother had been the breadwinner. I'd seen my parents side by side. In Saudi Arabia, my mother was basically rendered disabled. She was unable to drive, dependent on my dad for everything. The religious zealotry was so suffocating.

I asked my mother, 'Why shouldn't I act?' She said, 'Nobody in the family has acted, so why should you?'