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.

Nicola Walker

Business Wit Venue

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

Worry Tin Ted

My dad always jokes that if I ever write an autobiography, which I'm not going to, it'll be called 'It's Tough in the Middle.'

Nicola Walker

Write Which Ways

Before I had my son, I became obsessed by this painting I'd seen in an art gallery. It was a lot of money, but I felt such a rush of adrenaline when I wrote the cheque to buy it. I thought I was going to gaze lovingly at it forever, but after just two weeks, I realised I didn't really like it any more.

Nicola Walker

Money Art Wrote

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.

Nicola Walker

Love Learning Great

I started when I was 21, and it was always about getting the next job - like most actors, that's all it's ever been for me.

Nicola Walker

Art Ways Way

When I bought my first little flat, it was two bedrooms, so I got Sarah Phelps to live with me. My years-later-to-be husband was slightly thinking, 'Why are you inviting your friends to live with you?' I was very resistant to leaving my friends.

Nicola Walker

Your You Years

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!

Nicola Walker

Work Family Yin

I'm a hoarder, but then, when it all gets too much, I turn into a ruthless chucker. I'm very good at clearing out and giving stuff away. But I'm equally skilled at shoving things in a cupboard, shutting the door, and calling that 'cleared up.'

Nicola Walker

Good Way Very

I'm a proper Essex girl because my family was part of that great exodus from the East End.

Nicola Walker

Great Family Art

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.

Nicola Walker

Family Which Were

I don't really have a treasured possession, but I do love my family's proper old photo album. We all have hundreds of photos on our phones now, but you can't beat the old albums stuffed with black-and-white wedding photographs and 1970s Polaroids.

Nicola Walker

Wedding Love Family

I completely respect the job our police do.

Nicola Walker

Respect T Police

'The Split' is actually really hopeful - although it's left me reeling slightly, thinking about what we do to each other in the name of love, within the contract of marriage.

Nicola Walker

Marriage Love Hope

I'm married to a vegetarian, so if ever we go out to dinner, I go for kidneys.

Nicola Walker

Vegetarian T Out

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

Nicola Walker

You Yin Where

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.

Nicola Walker

Business Wit Venue

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.

Nicola Walker

Work T Refer

At home, people very rarely recognise me.

Nicola Walker

Home Very T

The people I've met who are divorce lawyers, there's a sense of them having to look reassuringly expensive.

Nicola Walker

Who Them T

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

Nicola Walker

Good You Will

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.

Nicola Walker

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

Nicola Walker

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.

Nicola Walker

I'd really like to play Lady Macbeth.

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.

Nicola Walker

'Spooks' was very much of its time and rather unique, so I was more than happy to be in that as a long-runner - because I think we won't have that sort of show again. I think it was really, really unusual.

Nicola Walker

It was really unusual that the crews on 'Spooks' were a real mix of men and women, and you'd struggle to see many women with parts that weren't cliched back in the late '90s.

Nicola Walker

I have to admit to the occasional need for 'Come Dine with Me.' I am the most atrocious cook, and that's probably why I find it so entertaining. It looks exotic to me.

Nicola Walker

I would like to think that there are more women in positions of power, to actually get these projects off the ground that are more balanced, where the story is about men and women.

Nicola Walker

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

Nicola Walker

My husband says I'm a grumpy lioness.

Nicola Walker

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

Nicola Walker

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

Nicola Walker

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

Nicola Walker

My family moved out of London's East End to a tiny village. The school I went to was supposed to be mixed gender, but there were hardly any boys born that year. So, yes, joining a youth theatre was a fun way to meet the opposite sex!

Nicola Walker

I live in dread that I might find myself in some sort of emergency, and everyone will turn to me and expect me to know what the correct procedures are.

Nicola Walker

I come from a family of scrap metal dealers, so becoming an actor seemed like a ridiculous thing to do, but I'd found the thing that gave me a kick, and I quickly became obsessed with it.

Nicola Walker

'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.

Nicola Walker

My husband is an actor, and we don't talk about acting at home.

Nicola Walker

'Spooks' was unique. It took up such a lot of your life - I think we did 10 episodes for the first few seasons. That's six months of your life.

Nicola Walker

Every interview I've done since I've turned 40, the journalist will say, 'So, isn't it amazing? Your career should be over, but you're still working. Why do you think you have found a career at a time when a lot of women are slowing down?'

Nicola Walker

I am not a morning person.

Nicola Walker

When the acting all dries up, I won't be going there - either to the police force or to the church. I'll have to think of something else!

Nicola Walker

People very rarely know my real name but recognise me as characters from my shows, such as 'Last Tango In Halifax.'

Nicola Walker

Derek Jacobi is probably our finest actor.

Nicola Walker

I noticed that, on 'Spooks,' there were a lot of women behind the camera and in different departments.

Nicola Walker

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.

Nicola Walker

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

Nicola Walker

Once I was asked to do celebrity rowing, where they taught people who had been to Oxford or Cambridge to row against each other. That sounded like too much hard work: really early mornings and having to be quite fit, which I'm not.

Nicola Walker

I wish someone had got hold of me and said, 'You know, children are really good fun. You will have a fantastic time, and you will still work.'

Nicola Walker