Caroline Quentin compared 'Strictly Come Dancing' to a theatre performance.
Caroline Quentin
The 60-year-old actress - who was partnered with professional dancer Johannes Radebe during this year's series - revealed she found each performance "difficult and terrifying" as they all felt like opening night on the stage.
She told Good Housekeeping: "It was the greatest learning curve. It's grindingly difficult and terrifying.
"It's like having an opening night every Saturday night, but I learned that I can forget myself long enough to just be there to entertain people. I was there to bring two minutes of joy into people's lives."
Caroline explained that when she turned 60 she decided to do more things that challenged her and 'Strictly' was one of them.
She said: "I suddenly thought: 'I have less time ahead of me than I have behind me – what am I going to do? What do I want to do?
"My children are well and they're growing up, so I decided to start doing things that I fancy doing; things that I haven't done before and will be a bit of a challenge.
"It's almost a mindset, I think. I'm not really frightened of much anymore. I care much less about what people think about me (except my family, obviously).
"As an actor, you tend to have to be a bit of a people-pleaser, and I think that I just don't really care about that so much anymore."
Read the full interview with Caroline Quentin in the February issue of Good Housekeeping, on sale now.
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