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I held down as many jobs as I could find, from being a waiter to working at a yoga studio and as a ticket-taker at a small theater company - anything that would allow me to go out and do auditions.

When I was starting out, I didn't know what the hell I was doing and my person who was helping me out, I didn't even have an agent, got me five or six big auditions for leads in movies in 1986 that I had no business auditioning for. I think I ran out of three of them before I'd even finished.

I got into musical comedy because of Shakespeare, not because of singing. They needed someone to understudy Richard Burton. I was also going to musical auditions because the agent I had insisted I go to them.

I studied at Guildhall and did the acting course, but because I could sing a bit, I kept being cast in musicals.

My first job was in pantomime; I was a chorus girl in 'Dick Whittington' at 16. I got the part by ringing the director daily to see if anyone had dropped out, and it paid off eventually, when I was cast as a rat!

So the only things I was being allowed to audition for were small roles in comedies. It broke my heart. No one would see me for anything else. I knew, in order to open up my career, I had to leave or that's all I would ever be given.

My very first acting job was with Alan Parker on' Angela's Ashes,' but as a child, I had written to so many other productions just applying for any role. I always wanted to be an actress, and I did loads of acting summer schools.

After I began to explore what an actor actually is, I studied for three years before I had the guts to go on an audition.

I used to audition like crazy - I would go on a hundred before I got anything. It took me a long time to get any jobs at all. It was hard until I booked 'Galaxy Quest,' and then it started to get easier.