Quotes

I'm not the new Cameron Diaz. I'm not the new Keira Knightley, either. I don't know where these ideas come from. I'd rather be thought of as the one and only Laura Haddock. I'll happily settle for that.

I've been very lucky and been able to work, as an actress, but I'm definitely a working actress. I get a script, I audition, and then I pray.

I wouldn't say no to becoming a Bond girl. Making it in Hollywood has been my dream ever since I was little, watching Marilyn Monroe movies. To star in a Bond movie would be bliss on a stick.

I'm probably borderline OCD. I insist on having all objects at right angles to each other. So a fork has to be at a right angle to the knife on the table. The salt and pepper pots have to be placed close together. Only recently have I started to notice it's a weird way to behave.

I think it's important not to grow up too fast. I'm 26 now, and I still can't wait for Christmas Day. The inner seven-year-old isn't buried too deeply in me.

I see my daft surname as a positive thing. It first dawned on me that I had a comical name when someone called me 'Fishface' on my first day at school. I've heard all the fish jokes since then, many times over.

I remember being about eight and watching Pollyanna (1960) with Hayley Mills. I looked at my mum and said, 'Mum, I want to be Pollyanna.' She said, 'You're going to have to make yourself cry if you want to be an actress.' So I turned my head away, and when I turned it back I was in floods of tears.

I remember taking my mom and dad to the premiere of The Inbetweeners (2011) and being really nervous. My mom was like, 'Laura, don't worry: I've watched all of the first series of the TV show, so I understand what this is going to be like.'

I loved theatre and film when I was growing up in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. My mum's a reflexologist and my dad's a corporate financier.

I believe in love at first sight. It has to be true because it happened to me. I was at an audition with the actor Sam Claflin and we both felt the thunderbolt as soon as we met. I knew what I felt but it was only much later that I learned he'd run straight off to his agent and said, 'I've just met the girl I want to marry.'

I'm something of a walking calamity. I had this huge crush on a boy at school who was two years above me. One day at lunch, I'd caught his eye and he was watching me as I got up to take my plate. My blazer got caught on the seat and I got my foot caught in the pocket of it and went flying across the room with the plate still in my hand. It didn't put him off though.

I'm no overnight success. Coming out of drama school, I lost count of the number of times I was rejected by The Bill. I'd audition for parts like 'shoplifting girl' or 'girl in queue'. Rejection is hard to take. Ultimately you have to let all that go and accept that, however talented you are, so much of it is down to the luck of the draw.

If it wasn't for my dad's advice I'd be working as a policewoman. As a kid I'd change my mind about my future career every day. Policewoman was the one I would always came back to. One day my dad said to me, 'You don't actually want to do any of those jobs. You want to be an actress who can play these people for a month at a time.' It's just as well I listened to him because I reckon I'd have made a terrible copper

The secret of anonymity is a change of hairstyle. The success of the The Inbetweeners (2011) took everyone by surprise. No one expected it to become the biggest-grossing British comedy of all time. Straight after the movie came out I got the part of Beryl in Upstairs Downstairs and had to dye my hair brown and cut it short. It was the perfect disguise. I was in the biggest British film for years and yet I could be completely inconspicuous.

The one thing I'll never do is make a pop record. In Monday Monday (2009) I had a scene where I had to perform a karaoke, where I believe I proved conclusively that I cannot sing. If someone held a gun to my head and told me it was for charity I might just consider a version of John Denver's "Country Roads".

Don't fiddle with your gadgets when you're talking to me. It's rude. There's no call for it. Though I do make an exception for my fiancé. If we're out having dinner and he whips his phone out I just assume he's taking an incredibly important call from Hollywood.