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It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black.

When I got a part in 'All American Girl,' in 1994, I remember thinking, 'Now I have a series, I'm not going to need to do standup,' but every night I'd go out afterward and get onstage somewhere.

Appearing in 'Legally Blonde' has helped me find my inner girl, although at the beginning the director was constantly telling me off for sitting like a boy, with my legs apart, while wearing a cocktail dress and heels!

My very first audition was for 'Hot Girl #1' in some movie.

They saw me, those reckless seekers of beauty, and in a night I was famous.

In the past I'd always felt like 'the girl' in the show or the movie. On 'Friday Night Lights' there were a bunch of girls, and I was the woman. Initially there was a little struggle with my identity around that. But now there's a sense of ease.

I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around there's just me and maybe one other coloured face.

I used to do a Saturday drama group called Young Blood Theatre Company with school-friends in west London - nothing to do with my mum and dad. A casting director came to pick people out for a new BBC children's series called 'MI High.' She picked me, I auditioned, and I got the job.

I am a black British female artist, so I must be like Ms Dynamite, I must be like Shystie, I must be like Jamelia, but we're all different.

I live in Surrey, but up until the age of eight I lived in London. And the way I heard about this 'Peter Pan' film was there was an open-call audition that I'd heard about, or read about, and I just thought, 'Oh, I'll go along for the fun.' Because I never dreamed in a million years I'd ever get it.