Ashley Jensen

“I know what I look like. I'm not a babe who's automatically going to be the leading-lady type. I think I would always be cast as the friend. I probably tend to look crap more often than I look good. I like messing around and pulling funny faces and doing funny walks.”

“When I hear the bagpipes, it makes the hairs on my neck stand on end. It always makes me weep.”

“The only time I've played a real baddy was when I was Regan in 'King Lear.'”

“I have just been working with Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is also a mum, on a movie called 'Hysteria.' She is everywhere because of the nature of film work. Not that I'm name dropping or anything like that. I have to pinch myself when I remember who I've been working with.”

“I was on my own, living in Los Angeles, and I didn't know my way around, so I thought I'd walk everywhere. Well, that certainly got me noticed. Any woman who walks any distance at all is automatically regarded as a hooker!”

“Nothing is forever, and I do still talk about when I'll come back to Britain. I'd love to come back and do a nice big juicy period drama. I don't understand it when people suddenly turn their back on Britain or Scotland. I'm so aware of it, and it's so much a part of who I am.”

“I think that children that are acting are always pretty savvy anyway because you're conducting yourself around adults a lot of the time, aren't you? But there is this worry now that children just want to be famous.”

“I was Lady Gaga way before her time. I had a wee kettle for a handbag. Didn't everyone, at some point? One of the teachers used to call me Dame Flora Robson because I had this big, long Victorian skirt. And I wore a Peruvian hat. It was the 1980s - people were wearing lots of lace.”

“To my family and friends, I'm very definitely a clown. But do you know what? Doing a drama would almost seem easy because I wouldn't need to find that gag in a line.”

“I want to go to Lapland and see Father Christmas, and now I've got a child, so I've got an excuse. Also, I'd like to go to South America especially as I'm now living in that part of the world, in L.A. now. And I must get down to Mexico.”

“I missed Britain. I'm from here and I never aspired to go to L.A. - it sort of happened by default. I loved being there. I found it a little bit difficult at first, but I found my way.”

“I did a lot of theatre when I started out. It was the Lyceum, the Citz, the Tron and the Traverse. I came to London and did the Royal Court, the National, 'King Lear' at the Manchester Royal Exchange. I did little bits of comedy, like 'Rab C Nesbitt,' but I wasn't predominantly about comedy.”

“I made some flippant remark about not wanting my son to grow up with an American accent, and the next thing I knew, there were people in America suggesting I head back to Britain if I was unhappy at such a prospect.”

“L.A. hasn't changed me that much - I've not forgotten where I'm from, you know. And I need to find a haggis, but no-one seems to sell them over here.”

“Nobody is more individual than you, so be confident with who you are and what you have to offer because everybody has got things to offer.”

“My mother has only just got over the fact that I will never play Shrek's sister - because of the Scottish accent, she thought I'd be perfect.”

“To be honest, I probably wouldn't have gone to Hollywood if I hadn't been offered 'Ugly Betty' because I was a wee bit feart. But you have to make yourself frightened. That's what keeps you alive.”

“People are always asking me if I work out, but to be honest, I'm doing very little at the moment. The only time I really go to the gym is if I'm staying in a hotel.”

“Before I lived in America, my husband and I did a Californian road trip. We took a month, starting off in L.A. I love the landscapes of California: one moment you're in the desert, the next you're up in the Napa Valley or by the water in Big Bear.”

“I get quite excited about things other people have worn. I went through a phase as a student when I wore a lot of 1940s tea dresses.”