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It all felt like a terribly long time. It would have meant that I had to make five movies in five years and if you don't like the movies, too bad. I guess I just wanted my freedom, and I think my life has been incredibly enhanced as a result.

I feel the producers really exploited my lack of talent at this time. I looked like an idiot up there. I want to be good, not something that people will laugh at.

I had given myself a sort of early retirement when I left the scene in 1985. All of the people in my family worked until they dropped, including my father. I decided to take a little time to enjoy life. I traveled, built my dream house, rescued a few dogs. My return to music, and acting, was deliberate, part of my musical arc.

I stuck around in Hollywood for too long. I was there a long time, and when I left, I was smart enough to realise that what I was leaving was not just the movie business. I wanted to get rid of the whole atmosphere.

It was sad leaving 'All Saints' because I was leaving a family that had nurtured me and looked after me for a couple of years, and at the same time that particular storyline wasn't a surprise to me. I knew I was going. It had been worked out very carefully over many months.

I wanted to be involved in TV and film in some capacity, so a compromise, because acting seemed unrealistic, and so risky, was to get into the production side. And it was a really fortunate, smart move looking back on it, because it gave me perspective on another side of the business.

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.

Often in films, you have no idea where you're going to be six months from now. And I grew very weary of that. And television, although it wasn't necessarily as creatively diverse as filmmaking can be, it was the lifestyle choice that I needed to make.