Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

I was asked recently when I first started acting. I'd forgotten that my first amateur role was in kindergarten as the lead in the school play and that pretty much gave me the taste for it.I don't mean to compare myself specifically with the likes of Mozart or Beethoven but I really don't think they woke up one day and said, 'I gotta decide... Do I wanna make cakes for a living, or be a composer?'. You're just born with a hunger for certain things and an attraction to the performing arts if you are a performer.

I came from a very musical background and we were always taken out to a lot of theatre from a very young age. My grandmother was a drama, language and music teacher and she always encouraged us and helped me with my French and with music. I suppose people expected that I would be a singer, that I would do opera singing and go and get the training. At that point, in my late teens, even though I'm actually very serious and responsible, I felt that it was too much of a commitment to a particular type of lifestyle. I was very sensitive to smoky atmospheres and things like that. I'd always heard these stories about Dame Joan Sutherland and how, out of respect, when she would come out after a show and go to parties afterwards people would always extinguish their cigarettes. You can't expect the world to stop doing what they're doing.

I would get so stressed out about performing that something would happen to my voice. I'd get a cold from stress, or whatever, so it was like this weird self-sabotage that would happen. I wanted to just give myself a bit of a break and the acting to me was more of a challenge because I expected less of myself. I wanted to work very hard at it and there seemed to be more to learn, because I had this innate sense with the music at a young age. I was just lucky. I was fortunate that I was able to learn - I had no training. I was able to learn on the job.

I apologise to audiences who saw my earlier work but, hey - move on. We learn!