Veteran actress Anne Reid has played a wide range of roles over the years, from Ken Barlow's doomed wife Valerie in Coronation Street to one of Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies. She's also voiced femme fatale Wendolene in Wallace & Gromit's A Close Shave. Equally at home in theatre, TV and film, The Mother offers her biggest, most demanding movie role to date.

What, for you, are the big themes of The Mother?

I think it's about family, and the way family values have broken down. People don't look after their parents any more, so when your husband dies - as happens to my character May - you can be left stranded. But May fights back, and how. I loved that.

She enjoys a sexual renaissance with a hunky builder Darren (played by Daniel Craig). How difficult were those scenes to film?

When we actually got started it was all right because it all becomes so technical, there are loads of other blokes in the room worrying about the lighting and that sort of thing. So the most important thing is to keep your head together and concentrate on the scene. Fortunately Daniel is an old hand at this, and he looked after me. He was very, very kind.

What did he do to put your at ease?

He was very sensitive, and not in the least bit fazed by it all. He knows what happens in these things, and there's nobody else in the world that I'd rather have done those scenes with. He's a beautiful young man and a beautiful actor. I think he was very brave too. The idea of getting into bed with an old bird like me must have been a bit daunting. It could all have been very tacky - we might have put people off their tea!

Films have not loomed that large in your career, although it seems that they might in the future. Did you ever dream that one day you would be the star of your own movie?

I had lots of dreams of course. As a girl my big pin up was William Holden, and he was the only person I ever stuck on my wall. I didn't know then that I'd be doing this now, but I come from a family of optimists. I've always had a very positive outlook.