I called Elizabeth McGovern Elizabeth Montgomery throughout a show. But, bless her, she didn’t say anything.

Being an actor is inherently embarrassing. You have to embrace it.

Passing wind on camera. I was doing a rather large movie and it was a closeup.

When I concentrate, I put my thumb in my mouth. I once did it during a really important meeting when asked a question I didn’t know the answer to. When I left the meeting my friend said: “What did you put your thumb in your mouth for?” I didn’t know I’d done it.

My creative freedom. I was the creative director of a large fashion brand when I packed it all in to pursue my writing.

When I was about 18, I worked on the chicken counter in a large supermarket, and every morning I had to pierce 64 birds on to industrial skewers to load up the rotisserie. That was very grim.

People who can’t hear other points of view. Absolute certainty always scares me a little.

To my younger self. I was incredibly self-loathing and self-doubting, and I’m still undoing that damage 30 years later.

The summer of 1997. My husband, who is an American, gave up everything to come and live with me in Edinburgh when we were students, and we were so skint but we had so much fun.

My mother and my brother would still be alive. So much of my life has been coping with the grief of losing them.