Nicola Walker

“I was on a tour of a Restoration comedy in 1996, and in Moscow we stayed at the Metropole hotel, off Red Square. The food there was opulent, but in the Maly theatre canteen, there were just a few pieces of rye bread, peanuts, and gherkins. I stood in the queue and burst into tears.”

“Two of my dramas, 'Unforgotten' and 'River,' were airing at the same time, and Dad had read about my 'success' in a newspaper - he thought it was brilliant. I was thinking, 'Does this mean I'm going to be put in a box for a bit now?'”

“Filming in London is brilliant.”

“When you're a kid, you imagine acting to be singing and fighting and like the movies. Then you become an actor and get the reality, which is often a lot more mundane. But sometimes it's really nice to run around with guns saving the world.”

“There wasn't really anything I wanted to do other than acting, which is ridiculous because there were no actors in my family, and we didn't know anything about acting.”

“I find the whole ceremony of marriage a bit like going to work. Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair.”

“It's now become a joke in my family that as soon as I finish a job, I'm on a loop saying, 'I'm never going to work again' - it drives everyone mad!”

“It's satisfying to watch a story where you feel like you're a fly on the wall.”

“When I'm not working, as a family we are obsessed with jumping off rocks into the sea and doing dangerous things.”

“I don't have a preferred medium of work, but like all actors, I do like to move from one to the other if possible.”

“I've always had a resting expression that either makes me look deep in thought or as though I'm about to fight you. I've lost count of the number of directors asking me what the problem is when all I'm doing is sitting still and being.”

“My two girlfriends from university, Sue Perkins and Sarah Phelps, are both in the business - and are both stupidly busy. We talk on the phone a lot and try to get out to dinner together, but our preferred venue is one of our kitchens with a lot of tea.”

“I was never told that the purpose of school was to get a job at the end of it. What was pushed on me was a love of learning, probably because my parents didn't have access to a great education.”

“I am very good at keeping secrets, except when I am drunk, when I will tell you absolutely anything.”

“Don't worry about fitting in - it's completely over-rated.”

“I can't tell you the excitement to be in a new TV series or a play you've got to read for. That's the best.”

“I just want to carry on doing high-quality work.”

“I'd really like to play Lady Macbeth.”

“The generation before me certainly told me that there would come a point when there were fewer parts, telling me to make hay while the sun shone. There was a time in my late thirties when I thought that it was something I had to get myself ready for, that things were going to slow down as I hit 40.”

“I get quite fearful about interviews, so I sought advice from other actors.”