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The nice thing about 'Miranda' especially is that the audience that we had was school kids right through to pensioners. It seems to be a show that people watch as a family, so it was the first job I've been involved in that certainly my oldest daughter and my middle daughter are big fans of, and proud that I'm in it, which is a nice feeling.

I am pleased to say that as I get older, I get less and less like the sitcom 'Miranda.' She is really a clown character, a heightened version of the 20-something me.

When my sitcom 'Miranda' first became successful, I was so in the thick of working and I was so stressed that I didn't really enjoy the moment. You suddenly look back and go, 'Gosh, you've just got to enjoy every day.' And now I wake up and literally pinch myself every day.

I'm not in the business of meddling with people's destinies - and yes, my characters are real people to me. They have histories and thoughts and yearnings and hurts and misgivings and pleasures that don't belong to me.

Some characters think more like me than others; some think more like my dad or someone else. It certainly is made up of my experiences, things I've heard, things I think are funny, things I think are sad. There's sort of a strange, blurry version of yourself in there.

I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.

I always talk about my characters like they're real people.

When I started acting, it was like a double identity crisis - your basic crisis, compounded by people saying, 'there goes Robards' kid, Bacall's kid.' Now I realize, sure, that gets your foot in the door, but once it's there, it's your foot. I'm not bothered anymore. I'm confident of my abilities.

All I can guess is that when I write, I forget that it's not real. I'm living the story, and I think people can read that sincerity about the characters. They are real to me while I'm writing them, and I think that makes them real to the readers as well.