Greta keeps her guard up

Hungarian playwright Ferenc Moln?r's play has been pumped into life by a great cast, including Michael Pennington and the fantastic actor and director Janet Suzman, who has been giving me lots of tips.

It's about an over-jealous husband and old ideas like fidelity. The Guardsman has a fantastic device in it - the husband disguises himself and woos his wife as a new lover. The play is great in the way that Cyrano is great - with a highly theatrical device which can be transposed into any era.

Michael and I play wealthy actors, stars of the Budapest stage in 1910. Playing actors underlines the essence of womanliness and maleness in an age-old battle between the sexes. But I play a very naughty woman. She's manipulative and has a mystery about her with which her husband is completely besotted. He tries to understand her or trap her, but can't. Even at the end of the play you just don't know what she knew and how much of it was contrived.

I wanted to be a stage actress from the age of eight. That is what I trained for. But for years the doors were closed to me, because I was established in film. Also when I was a student I found that I could work as a fashion model. It was very good money for a holiday job.

I changed my name because modelling was just a way to help me through my student years, and I was terrified that people would think I was a model wanting to be an actress. I still found it very difficult to get an Equity card. When I showed them my first modelling contract, even the fact that I'd spent three years slaving away at Bristol Old Vic Theatre school didn't impress them. Thankfully things have changed...