She's one of the most familiar faces on TV thanks to her high-profile role in BBC's Call The Midwife.
Jenny Agutter, 69, has played Sister Julienne since the first season of the drama, which is set in the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s in London's hard-up East End and centres around the work of the midwives in the area.
And in real-life the actress found herself in the middle of her own labour drama when she gave birth on Christmas Day more than a month before her due date.
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Jenny, who shot to fame at the age of 17 in The Railway Children, gave birth to her only child, a son called Jonathan, on Christmas Day 1990. Jonathan, now 31, arrived five weeks early after she went into labour on Christmas Eve.
In one interview she recalled: “Singing the carols late at night, I got terribly emotional, which I didn’t realise of course was actually the beginnings of labour.”
Jenny, who is married to Swedish hotelier Johan Tham, added: “I had so many different midwives because they all wanted to get off.
“The obstetrician would check and say, ‘Baby’s not coming yet, just going to carve the turkey’. Then it was the pudding. Then he came back and said, ‘If he doesn’t arrive now, it’ll be Boxing Day. Right, get the forceps out’.”
Jenny, who was born in Taunton, has credited her husband for "saving" her.
Having spent years living in Hollywood, she met him at the age of 36 during a visit back home to an arts festival in Bath. He went out to visit her in Los Angeles – and hated the place.
So after 17 years of Hollywood life she moved back to Britain and they began a relationship and she became pregnant very quickly with Jonathan.
She said of her life change: “It saved me. I had got stuck in my ways, ran my life the way I wanted, took holidays when I wished and went where I wanted. I did have long relationships but they all ended.
“I was thinking: ‘Maybe I will just remain single.’ And, more worryingly: ‘What does the future hold?’ Then all this came at once with Johan. It came as a shock but it was the best thing that happened.”
Call The Midwife in on BBC One on Sundays at 8pm.
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