You don't want to bash viewers over the head with a blunt message or lecture them - they'd soon get bored with that.

I think with 'Silk' there's something there for everyone: it's a legal drama, but it's human as well - you get to dip into the lives of the barristers and clerks.

Nobody's impressed back home. All my friends were going, 'Oh right, so you're doing a play up in Leeds? Another depressing one is it? Do you mind if we don't bother coming?' I love that.

You want to go to your deathbed saying, 'I didn't sell out.' But it's a tough business to keep to what you believe in and get through and do well.

I've always fancied being a bit of warrior, on a horse swinging a sword around, sorting out the men... Oh yes, that sounds lovely.

It's great having time to just sit back and work through things in my mind. It helps put life into perspective.

The first posh meal out I had was on my 10th birthday.

Pay in the acting world hasn't kept up with inflation.

As I've got older, I've got slightly more fussy. You've got less time; you need to use it wisely.

I remember when New Labour got in. I was at Salford Tech studying drama, and everyone was jumping up and down, and I was so upset, I went to a phone box and called my granddad.

I get very irate with actors when they talk about how distressing it all is. I mean, it's only acting. Please.

I'm always an advocate of 'acting is reacting,' which can be difficult.

Music is a huge inspiration to my style. I first got into it when I was 10: the new wave mod scene.

I'm quite cautious in most areas of my life, but I'm always happy to gamble when it comes to acting. I'm not frightened of falling on my face.

If I dress up, I try to wear something that's still a bit me, but then I regret it when I see that everyone else has dressed up more and looks amazing.

My favourite outfit is a giant bunny suit. I wore it in a music video for 'Are You One?' by the Chanteuse & the Crippled Claw and got to keep it.

I do, in a strange way, care deeply what people think.

I went to the Old Bailey, and I met a judge, and I was petrified, but they were like, 'Oh, you're an actor, well, great.' It was a bit like we're cut from the same cloth a little bit.

I think, as a woman, you've got to make so many sacrifices.

We shouldn't still be asking, 'Have you got children? Why've you not got children? Ooh, you must have children!' Bog off, d'you know what I mean?

If I feel like if there's a few too many people on that path with me, then I want to jump off and find another one.

I was a tomboy. In my clubbing days, my friend Lucy Davies-Hunt - half-Iranian, looked like Yasmin Le Bon - could wear catsuits, while I was the one in the sweatshirt, jeans, and Fila boots.

I left the North when I was 21 to go to drama school in London, and I stayed there 12 years.

After my mum and dad got divorced, I was entitled to free school dinners, but my mum said, 'Under no circumstances,' because she was proud.