Keeley Hawes embraces being 40 but doesn’t feel "grown up".
The ‘Spooks’ star – who has three children, Myles 15, Maggie, 11 and nine-year-old Ralph – admits she doesn’t mind getting older but is surprised that people have been so interested in talking about her age "for the last 11 years".
She said: "I still don’t think of myself as a grown up. But getting older is great. You do care less. You’re more prepared to take risks. You sort of … you sort of think, ‘Well, what’s the worst that can happen really?’
"All anybody talks about is how old I am.
"People have talked about how old I am since I was 29 … sometimes I have to think, ‘I’m not actually that old.’ "
The 40-year-old actress stars in new ITV show ‘The Durrells’, which sees her work alongside animals and children – an experience she describes as "just glorious".
The six-part series has been adapted by Simon Nye from Gerald Durrell’s trilogy of novels, including ‘My Family and Other Animals’.
Keeley plays Louisa, Gerald’s widowed mother, who relocated her family from England to Cofu in 1935 and had to contend with her son bringing home creatures at inopportune moments.
Speaking to the Radio Times magazine, the actress added: "And now I would only work with children and animals, given the choice.
"Apart from being bitten by mosquitoes it was just glorious.
"When you think, in the 1930s to take your four children as a single mother halfway across the world – because there’s no EasyJet and there’s nothing to make that journey simple for you. And you’re carrying all your worldly possessions … it’s an enormous undertaking. She’s really, really brave."
Keeley Hawes doesn’t think of herself as grown up
