The actor, director and now singer on her essential aural companions: “When you’re lonely, music becomes your friend” My father, my real Dad, was into music in a big way. We had a huge wooden sideboard in the front room with a few records in, that we were not allowed to touch! I remember him playing Bob Marley over and over again, and this particular album was one of his favourites, so by default it was the soundtrack to playing out on the streets where I lived. Nottingham was a very multicultural place, so it was common to hear reggae on stereos.
As a child, I didn’t really understand the lyrics, so I wouldn’t have realised that these were political songs – songs of freedom, if you like. But if anything, the lyrics are even more relevant today. And it’s just incredible music, so thanks Dad! The next one, again, I have to thank my father for.
He’d had the Beatles records since he was a kid and they were his everything. I just have these memories of being really little and peering over the record player and seeing the little apple cut in half in the middle of the vinyl. If Dad played a record it was an event, because we weren’t allowed to touch them.
And we would sit in the same way as he would read books to us, Lord Of the Rings and The Hobbit. It was almost like, ‘This is your education, guys!’ I can’t go for too long without listening to The Beatles – it’s like oxygen, isn’t it? It’s in our DNA. My brother was in the military.
When he went aw.