Holliday Grainger never thought her acting career would "work out".

The 29-year-old actress got her first job on TV show ' 'All Quiet on the Preston Front' when she was just six years old, and though she always "really enjoyed" each job she got, she never expected things to continue into adulthood.

She said: "I fell into it when I was young and really enjoyed it. I didn't think it would work out. Everyone would say, 'Oh the transition between being a child actor and an adult is really hard,' so I thought, 'All right fine, so that'll mess up and then I'll do something real.' "

Holliday's mother Jan served as her chaperone until the day she turned 16, and then she was allowed to go to set on her own, and she thinks the freedom she was allowed always stopped her from wanting to "rebel".

She told the Sunday Telegraph's Stella magazine: "After [I was 16] she said, 'That's it, you can do it by yourself now. Bye.'

"So then I was getting myself up and down to London for auditions and back and forth to school.

"I didn't need to rebel that much because I already had my own life in a way."

Despite having worked for so long, the 'Cinderella' actress insists she has never been "hugely ambitious" and doesn't give much thought to where her next job will come from.

She said: "I've got to feel like I'm working at my best, but I'm not hugely ambitious. I'm doing it because I want the results to be good, not because I think it'll lead to something else."

And Holliday - who is dating actor Harry Treadaway - credits the efforts her single mother made to ensure she never missed out on an opportunity with giving her a natural work ethic.

She explained: "I'm an only child of a single mum and she was always working. She was amazing when I was little. If I wanted to go to ballet lessons or horse riding, it was always, 'Yep, fine.' And it's only now that I realise how little money we had."