After playing Saffy in 'Ab Fab', I needed to take time out from acting to see if I really wanted to do it. I had been doing it for a very long time and I was being sent the same sort of scripts again and again.
When you play a lot of games in a row, and you come off the pitch thinking, 'I can't do this no more,' then it is time to look at something else, whether you have six months left on your contract or four years.
I realised after doing 'Tanu Weds Manu' that I had become fat and was not performing to the mark. I realised that I had become a terrible actor. I did 'Jodi Breakers,' which did not do well. So, I moved away from the film industry and lived with the common man to know where I was lacking and what do they want from an actor.
I got my Bachelor's degree in nursing and worked nine years - even taught nursing in a college - before I stopped and said to myself, 'This is not who I am. I am not really a nurse inside. I'm a writer.'
I did four or five years in telly, and by the end of it was drained. I was a bit sick of myself. I didn't feel like an actor anymore. That sounds silly, but when you're doing a play you're using different muscles, and it blew all the cobwebs away.
I thought my acting career was going to just last forever - and I didn't plan on it ending at 41, 42 years of age.
The thing I wasn't prepared for was when I wasn't in Motley Crue anymore. 'Cause as much as my phone was ringing, it stopped ringing.
When I was 23, I felt like I was further back than when I was 21. After two solo albums for this small indie label Just Music, they'd gotten no real profile. So I kind of turned away from the solo thing a bit.
