I don't think, until you've actually lost somebody you really love, that you can go through that door that allows you to be grown-up.

I think you have to relax about aging. What else can you do?

My parents were very volatile but very loving. My father would get jealous if my mother looked at somebody. I used to be insanely jealous. It comes out of insecurity. It can come and go, but you get to the point in life where you don't have this raging jealousy and protectiveness about your world.

I do still get the odd fan letter about The Good Life, clearly written by somebody aged 18, who says: Will you send a photograph? And I think: Maybe it's kinder not to. I'm deeply into my 50s now.

So many roles for women demand that you make the audience fall in love with you or sympathise with you.

The girl-next-door image is a sort of joke; for years, I couldn't get any roles other than as somebody dark.