Zoë Wanamaker - On family

Zoë Wanamaker, CBE, is probably best known for her role as Susan Harper in the BBC sitcom, My Family, and for playing Madam Hooch in the Harry Potter films. Zoë married actor Gawn Grainger in 1994 and is stepmother to his son and daughter.

My parents were both very strong personalities. I'm a mix of both. My mother was adorable, a great giggler with a great sense of humour, but she always put herself in the background. She felt she wasn't pretty enough or thin enough.

My father was very strong and could be quite frightening. He was dynamic and when he exploded you wanted to get out of the room.

I'm the middle of three sisters and neither of them ever wanted to act. My younger sister, Jessica, might have had an inkling. But the nearest my older sister, Abby, got was to be a speech therapist.

• On family
• On My Family
• On her homelife
• On her passions

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