Joanna Lumley has "always wanted to be older".

She said: "I thought I was going to be 80 and it's only 70! I love it. I always wanted to be older. Ever since I was 12, I wanted to be older. When I was 18 I wanted to be 30. When I was 30 I wanted to be 50.

"I have a sort of slight impatience with life. What's next? What's next? I don't see getting old as a diminishing. It might be. Who knows? Maybe I'm talking through my hat, but at the moment it doesn't seem diminishing. You seem to know more, and understand more.

And the 70-year-old actress doesn't believe in growing older and instead thinks people just grow up and "reach a kind of maturity".

She added: "When I look back at how I thought when I was 12 or 18, I don't feel so terribly different. I feel I learnt good lessons, when to shut up or when to say things out loud, when not to butt in, or what to ask.

"Do we grow older? See, I think we grow up, and once you've grown up - which is whenever you reach a kind of maturity - that's sort of it. Then you fine-tune that, with luck. Or fall off it."

However, Joanna admits she still finds it difficult to deal with criticism.

She shared to The Times magazine: "Some things always hurt and it's so stupid because it's the same old things. You can get 20 brilliant reviews and one sarky one, and that's the one you remember word for word."