‘I’ve got to pace myself now. I can learn lines, but it takes me 10 times as long as it used to, because your brain just slows down, however much I try and keep it active.
‘I’m doing Wordle and I’m doing Spelling Bee – it makes no difference whatsoever, because your brain just goes. I’m sorry, but I’ve got thousands of lines in there and I haven’t got much room for any more.’
She doesn’t much like being 77. ‘I keep thinking, God, I’m going to be 80.’ The younger of her two sisters has died, and the elder is bed-bound now. ‘And we’ve always been such good friends; we had holidays together and would meet up, and suddenly all that’s changed,’ says Steadman. ‘And it makes me sad, to just see life…’ The thought peters into silence.
Along with a ghostwriter, she has been working on her autobiography. ‘I wasn’t going to, but I was asked out to lunch by a publisher and he really persuaded me,’ she says. ‘I said, “I’ll do it if it’s just about my childhood, my mum, my career, how I became an actress, the parts I’ve played that I’ve enjoyed. But I don’t want it to be about my marriage, my kids, my private life. I don’t want to talk about that.”’
She has two sons from her marriage to Mike Leigh, Toby, 45, and Leo, 42. She also has one grandchild, who is six years old – ‘He’s the most beautiful, adorable child on this planet, of course’ – and she will be a grandmother again in April. ‘And when I was told that news it just lifted me.’
She has been with her partner, the actor Michael Elwyn, for 28 years. ‘I love our life together. There’s a part of me, the older I get, where I’m thinking, I don’t want to be alone,’ she says. ‘I’m not a loner. Some people say, “Oh I love it. I just have a quiet time.” I don’t like it at all.’