Growing up, the image I had of Princess Margaret was completely different. I knew that she was a slightly tragic figure, but I didn't know why. Now, I love her with my all my heart. She was such an amazing person, and getting to 'know' her better was an honor.

I did The 'Acid Test' at the Royal Court, by Anya Reiss, who's the most wonderful, amazing female writer. She was only 19 when she wrote it. She wrote it about three girls in a flat on a Friday night, and that was magic because it was so rare to have three girls in your age group in a play. It just doesn't happen.

I thought, 'If I go to uni, I can read and watch people and take many different subjects - take philosophy modules - and have time to travel in the summers,' which I did. I thought, 'I hope this will make me a better actor,' and it did.

So many times, you pick up a script, and you think, 'OK, so she's the sexy one,' or, 'She's the ex-girlfriend.'

The best part of being married is to be a family.

You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously attacking a daughter or a son, but in my family it was my mother. My mother, I would say, was a... very brutal disciplinarian.

I was raised in a sort of village. I have a huge family, and I think there is strength in that. It helped me to deal with some of the complications of living in the South because I always felt like I belonged, no matter what.

My mother was a very good violinist; my father was a musicologist and spent most of his life in academia.