Everybody in my life knows what’s real and what isn’t. Apart from my mother, who seems to believe every negative thing that’s written about me!   She’s like, “I can’t believe you did this!” I’m like, “I didn’t!” And she’s like, “Yes, you did, I know you did!” … She’ll literally believe a gossip magazine over her own son.

I think deep down, people don’t really change, but it has varied the way that my friends see me, even my family. It’s weird, because the truth is that people in your life repeatedly treat you differently. But you’ll always know who your true friends are. I hope that there will come a moment where they, my family, and myself will get back to normal, because they know me, they know who I am and we have the same dreams. I don’t have the feeling that I’ve changed, I think I’m the same.

I’ve never went to acting school. One day my dad was at a restaurant and he saw a bunch of pretty girls, so he asked them where were they going to and they said Theater club, so my dad told me I had to go there. It was so embarrassing.

My dad is from Yorkshire and he did a bunch of things.  In the ’70s, he moved to America for a bit and just worked as a taxi driver.  Then he started selling cars in the ’80s.  My mom worked as a booker at a modeling agency and now they’re both retired.  My mom, sisters and I speak really well.  My parents were just very aware of how you’re treated differently in the world if you speak articulately.  So it was just the way I was brought up.

My dad told me a lot of stories.  I would never buy a car from him.

I was at a small private school in London.  I wasn’t very academic.  My dad said to me, ‘OK, you might as well leave, since you’re not working very hard’.  When I told I him wanted to stay on for my A-levels, he said I’d have to pay my own fees, then he’d pay me back if I got good grades.

It’s hard for them [my parents] because they want to be proud of me, but I keep reminding them that it’s all luck.  Luck is what got me here, nothing else.

People sent me hate mail, and the internet was full of messages from Twilight fans who didn’t want me.  They said I looked like a bum.  My mother told me she had read online that I was wretched and ugly and had the face of a gargoyle.   Stephanie [Meyer] helped me out by giving me her seal of approval, and then the trailer came out and everything turned around.  I started getting love letters and fan mail instead of hate mail.

I really wasn’t part of the acting fraternity at my school, but I joined this thing after my dad argued with me for ages. I think he had some sort of weird foresight about it. I went [to the Barnes Theatre Club] and I worked backstage on the first play I did. They used to do two shows a year and they are all great. So many people from there had become actors.

My dad wanted me to be an actor.

I haven’t really decided to be an actor yet! I started doing plays when I was about 15 or 16. I only did it because my dad saw a bunch of pretty girls in a restaurant and he asked them where they came from and they said drama group. He said ‘Son, that is where you need to go.’

Up until I was 12 my sisters used to dress me up as a girl and introduce me as ‘Claudia’! Twelve was a turning point as I moved to a mixed school and then I became cool and discovered hair gel.