dulcedeleirs

Since then she has played Amanda Redman's daughter Kacie in the ITV1 comedy drama Honest and will soon be appearing in Sky One's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic with David Jason and Christopher Lee.

Now 22, she shares a flat in West London with her sister. For the past two years she has been dating singer-songwriter Tom Dibb.

I'd much rather be a Haddock than a Sardine or a Halibut. It first dawned on me that I had a comical surname when someone called me "Fishface" on my first day at school. I've heard all the fish jokes since then, many times over. When I started acting professionally, I considered changing my name, but my dad looked so disappointed that I decided to keep it. I've grown to love it now.

David Jason is nothing like Del Boy. The weirdest feeling in the world is to wake up and think, "Today I'm filming scenes with David Jason." I grew up watching Only Fools And Horses and he's a big hero of mine. So, on the first day of shooting The Colour Of Magic I was both fantastically excited and very, very nervous. He turned out to be completely grounded and extremely well spoken. Not like Del Boy at all.

I'm a fabulous drunk. I'm always the first person up on the table having a dance, going bonkers. I can be at the centre of a party even when there is no party.

I have no problem doing sex scenes. As long as they're funny it's fine. There were three of them in the first series of Honest. Because it's a comedy-drama, the scenes were more like light-hearted romps than anything emotionally intense. Even so, I dreaded the thought of my parents seeing them. I had to blindfold them while it was on.

The most uncomfortable hour of my life was spent sitting on a block of ice. I had to play a mermaid in Honest and I forced myself to imagine I was sitting on a sunny beach, praying that my backside wouldn't drop off from the freezing cold.

I was once so desperate for attention I faked my own death. Well, sort of. When I was growing up, if the conversation wasn't focused entirely on me I'd often fall off my chair and pretend to be choking on a chicken bone or something. After a while, my parents accepted it as completely normal.

My boyfriend wants me to marry Jay Kay. I'm a huge fan of Jamiroquai and if he proposed there's no way I could resist. I've told my boyfriend this and he's completely cool with it. His attitude is, "How great would it be if my girlfriend was married to Jay Kay?" He's very understanding like that.

Bluffing is key to being a successful actor. It's mostly about convincing somebody that it's within your capabilities to do something even if you've never tried it. If a casting director needed someone who is good at judo, I wouldn't pretend I was a black belt but I'd tell them it was within my grasp. That's called bluffing, not lying.

Life wouldn't be worth living without my MacBook Pro, my BlackBerry, my iPod and Bose SoundDock. Not forgetting the huge Sony television that dominates my lounge. I picked up the gadget bug from my dad. He's the king of all things new-fangled.

The first thing I'd do with a big pay cheque is buy a fleet of Fifties Chevrolets, one for every day of the month. They're the coolest cars ever. I'd also buy a massive open-plan artist's studio in London and fill it with soft, squeezy furniture, a home cinema, a waterbed and one of those Japanese paperless toilets. If there was a few bob left over, I'd treat my dad to a super-fast speedboat.

I'll happily entertain strangers while demonstrating a challenging yoga position. I take after my mum like that. I'm an odd mix ? my sensible, determined side comes from my father who was a corporate financier. The other side comes from my mum who used to sing in a folk group called The Harvesters. She's a complete nutcase.

I'm proud to be a Haddock but I never eat the stuff. When I was growing up, mum suddenly announced no more haddock would be served at the Haddock table. We couldn't be seen to be eating our own.