I always look to play flawed characters. I'm not very interested in playing somebody that's just, you know, the very nice one or the attractive one, or whatever, which a lot of female parts can just be written that way.

I was only 23 and just out of college when I filmed 'Casualty' and so nervous, but it was brilliant fun. I was really lucky, and it really helped my career.

Fishing is very meditative; you need to be able to give up control and cast out the line and then hope for the best, so in that way, it's quite like acting.

To be honest, accents are one of those things for me, personally, that usually come quite naturally by just listening to the people.

I do not stick to rules when cooking. I rely on my imagination.

I'm great at a deathbed. I've never given tranquillisers or psychiatric medicine. I've given love and fun and creativity and passion and hope, and these things ease suffering.

Somebody informed me recently that the key to every art, from writing to gardening to sculpture, is creativity. I beg to differ.

The act of writing surprises me all the time. A miraculous thing happens when you have an idea and you want to convert it into words... and then you start to create a work of art, and that's another miracle, and it remains mysterious to the writer, or to this writer anyway.