It's difficult to say what attracts one person to another. It's always a combination, isn't it? I've always found people interesting because of the way they think, and a sense of humour is irresistible.
I think very few people do find a relationship where, every moment of every day, everything they do comes together. That's why, in a nutshell, everyone loved Barbara in 'The Good Life.' She was the perfect partner. It was a formula. She wasn't glamorous. She wasn't clever. But she was a good partner. That's too easy, too perfect.
A lot of my close friends are nothing to do with show business. But the people I've had relationships with, invariably, I've worked with. I think that's probably because I grew up in a family where we all worked together, so it's something I feel comfortable with.
I love a mask. It's why I've got a thing about good writing. When you're acting, you're going into someone else's work. You're behind his words; it's not you.
I really do believe there are things passed down. Behaviour, not just DNA. Psychological make-up. You can see it in dogs. If you want to breed a calm dog, don't get two fighters.
I think in the acting world you either manage that transition to older roles, or you stick with what you've always done and then discover nobody can bear you doing it as an older person.
The gym is where I get my chill-out time. I try to go six days a week, but when I'm working, that goes down to about three.
I love gentle, gorgeous classical music such as Mozart.
I don't think I've ever not had a dark side. But one of the wonderful reasons why you go into this business is that half your life you live in a fantasy, which is somebody else's life. It's actually a great release because you're not having to deal with the itty-bitty bits of life.
I did try fillers once. Don't ever have fillers because when your cheekbones are high, it's chipmunk time.
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 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.
Looking back, I got the bed I wanted and I lay in it. I didn't want to go to America. If you want to join that world, you have to go and live there, and that was something I could not have done. I am very much about family. It doesn't matter where I live, but I feel very needful of my people around me. Besides, theatre is my first love.
I am used to looking good. In a way, if I thought I looked like the back end of a bus, I probably wouldn't have done 'Strictly Come Dancing' and gone out there in public.
I have to say I am a 'Strictly' fan, which is why I am in it. I've always watched it for years. I am not an 'X Factor' fan, and I just think it is a different show. One is about learning something new and having a great time, and the other is rather desperate.
I'm not very much of a foodie; I like small amounts of delicious things, but I've never overeaten - I'd much rather have a glass of wine.
I'm lucky in that I don't like sweet things at all. My father loved cakes to such a degree that he kept forcing them down my throat when I was little, and it put me off for life. He had terrible cholesterol, poor thing.
It was in India that I started my acting career, courtesy of my parents, long before I set foot on stage in England. They headed a company of travelling players performing Shakespeare up and down the land.
From the early days of the Raj, Shakespeare had been woven into the fabric of India's education, and my father understood that in a culture rich with storytelling and fantastical tales, Shakespeare's characters and storylines resonated in a powerful way.
Every time we moved on, I joined a different class in a different school with different girls until, aged 13, my father had taken the decision to pull me out of school altogether. Everything I needed, he reasoned, could be found within the rich language of Shakespeare's plays at which, by then, I was something of an old hand.
