Quotes from Nicola Walker

Cornwall is my favourite place - I wish I could earn a living there.

My two great fears are either not working or working on something that means you can't do something else you really want.

I've got a feisty face.

Filming in London is brilliant.

When you're both actors, it is feast or famine financially and emotionally in your marriage.

Derek Jacobi is probably our finest actor.

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.

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

My whole family were from the East End, but they moved away when I was a child. They still cannot get their heads around the fact that I ran back to London as soon as I could, when I was 21.

We're all used to seeing a lot of cop shows, some of them brilliant, some of them very generic.

When you're working, you're in the present, but you've always got one eye on where your next job might be coming from, and I don't think that will ever go away.

'Better do it than wish it done,' is a phrase ingrained in my mind.

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.

When I look back at the Nineties, I realise there wasn't very much TV I wanted to do.

Once you've sat in a room annoying Derek Jacobi while he's trying to do his crossword, you're prepped for working with the greats.

My husband says I'm a grumpy lioness.

I love being the first person to play a part. I really get a big thrill out of it.

'Collateral' poses lots of questions and does it within the format of a really good, tense thriller. It starts at a real pace, and it doesn't let go.

At home, people very rarely recognise me.

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

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

I'd do anything with Tom Courtenay.

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.

I could never be anyone I've played. I am so not a detective; I can barely get 200 yards from A to B with the help of Google maps, and I am just about the least observant person on the planet, so I never notice what people look like or how they walk or if they're committing a crime in broad daylight.