I just love to experience things. I would do almost anything once.

I think a lot comes from having the experience of doing stand-up comedy. It allows you to figure out the psychology of an audience what things are funny and not.

My experience with both my parents is that grief has a lot of down sad things but I was also really emotionally raw in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely my relationships were hotter and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.

An adolescent is somebody who is in between things. A teenager is somebody who's kind of permanently there. And so living with them through the various teenage hopes and sorrows and joys was curiously enough a maturing experience for me.

One of the things in the back of my mind is that after my sports experience I never want to be totally consumed by any one endeavor other than my family life.

You can learn more from the lows than the highs. The highs are great but the lows make you really look at things in a different way and want to improve. Every player will have both in their careers and I have but what you get is that experience which is so important to perform at your best.

I believe that being an actress or being involved in a movie has to be a life experience otherwise why go for it? I have to change me and I have to learn things and I have to push me and my limits. By acting I find a freedom inside of a prison in a way.

These are tough times and under this Tory-led government many people in Manchester are suffering and getting left behind. If elected I will use all my energy skills experience and knowledge to stand up for our communities and get things done for the better.

I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.

Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.