Archie Panjabi

“There is a big misconception about arranged marriage. Yes, it can mean that you meet someone and then have to marry them, but this was my mother saying, 'I'm going to introduce you to so-and-so - If you don't like them, fair enough.'”

“I went to Brunel University and very much wanted to go on to do a PhD in management, but then my acting career started to take off. In those days when you switched on the box there were hardly any brown or black faces.”

“At the end of the week, it's nice to just hang out in a pair of jeans and let my hair down. I need a break from all that fashion!”

“I don't ever want to be hugely famous because I had a little taste of it after 'East Is East' and 'Bend It.'”

“My mother wanted to be a teacher when she was young, and my father didn't approve of it, so she fought very hard to become one. And she did it. So when I said I wanted to become an actress, my mother was very supportive. She always said to me, 'There's no such thing as 'can't.'”

“I'd love to do a romantic comedy. And perhaps, if the character was right and I had a good gut instinct, a Bollywood movie. And I'd love to direct. One day. I'm learning a lot on the set of 'The Good Wife.'”

“Luckily my parents were not against my ambition, they've always been very supportive. But they were adamant that I went to university first.”

“It was the success of 'Bend it Like Beckham' which got my name out there. 'A Mighty Heart' also helped.”

“The generation that migrated to the West in the 1970s or 1960s has now lived more in the West than India, and India has changed so much. My parents fall into that category.”

“Since I was a baby my goal was to be on TV because film was just impossible - you never got any Asian women in Western cinema. I grew up wanting to be in 'East-Enders' because film wasn't even a dream. The community were very much like, 'How can you want to act? It's such a low-class profession.'”

“I like to cook Indian food when I can. I find the process of creating a home-cooked meal to be unwinding.”

“I knew what I wanted to do for my entire life, from nursery to university. I've always been geared towards wanting to act. I've stuck with it, dedicated time to it.”

“The predictable thing about 'The Good Wife' is how unpredictable 'The Good Wife' is.”

“You can have all the agents and publicists in the world but no one's ever going to give you 110 per cent like someone who loves you.”

“You have this impression from England that New Yorkers can be quite aggressive, but certainly the people that I've bumped into and the friends I've made here don't seem that way. Just walking down the street and asking for directions, people seem to be very helpful and happy to help.”

“I love roles where I have to transform myself.”

“Sometimes my ethnicity is relevant, other times not. I definitely get the best of both worlds.”

“I feel like I have one foot in New York, one foot in London and one foot in India. But it's important to me to invest time with family.”

“I knew from a young age that I wanted to be an actor. I never even thought about other careers. The acting field is certainly not the path many Indian parents encourage their children to take, but mine were very supportive. They wanted me to have an education, but understood that this is what I wanted to do.”

“I went out for a film where they wanted seven brothers and one sister, so I was there for half a day while they were waiting for 'Archie' to read for a boy... I've had drivers come to pick me up in England looking for a blond, blue-eyed Scottish boy.”