I was obsessed with my looks, now I'm glad not to be offered any sexy roles

Julie Graham reveals the bonuses of growing older on and off screen

- SUE CRAWFORD

KNOWN for forging a career playing sultry roles, Julie Graham says she could not be happier those parts no longer à come her way as she enters the period in her career she jokes is her "crone zone".

The Scots actress says she is no longer interested in her looks, or other people's opinions of them, and would even like to let her hair go grey.

"Being an actor, you get so consumed about the way you look sometimes, especially if you are playing characters that are a little bit glamorous or sexy," she said.

"Now, I don't really get asked to play those characters any more but I don't really care, because the characters I'm being asked to play now are much more interesting anyway."

The former Benidorm star insists that, at 59, she no longer turns men's heads. And Julie says she is delighted.

"I love not getting that stupid attention from men in the street," she tells Kaye Adams on her How To Be 60 podcast, which is out tomorrow. "I feel I can go under the radar."

She also finds it empowering, adding "I just don't have that sort of obsession with looks and my figure. I don't care about the way I look any more; it's liberating, it's so freeing

"I was always bothering about people's opinions of me but now it's water off a duck's back. I call it my crone zone. I'm going into my witch years. I'm really empowered by it."