Harriet Walter has revealed she was told to “fix” her teeth and get her “nose done” at the start of her career.

The 73-year-old actress reflected on the unsolicited comments made by a man about her appearance as a young actress.

She told Vogue: “It seems to me that there were some old-fashioned attitudes around when I was coming up.”

Recalling the comments made towards her: "It was, 'I would get your nose done.' And somebody else said, ‘You should fix your teeth.’ And I ignored them. Partly out of laziness, partly because I never thought of myself as a looker.

"Bit by bit, I got a reputation for being good at acting, which was great.”

Harriet – who self-published a photo book titled ‘Facing It: Reflections on Images of Older Women’ about 50-plus women back in 2011 - ignored the suggestions about plastic surgery and embraced ageing instead.

She said: “Do I want to try and look younger? And do I want to do a lot of face surgery?”

Whilst motherhood was never on the cards for Harriet, the ‘Sense and Sensibility’ star often wonders if she made the right decision.

She said: “I punish myself and think, ‘Gosh, am I very selfish because I’ve travelled light-footedly through life?’ I do feel weird sometimes that I haven’t actually done that thing of giving birth. Here I am, at the end of my life, and I never did that? That’s gonna make you feel very old and grey.”

After a string of successful TV roles, Harriet will be marking her stage return in Federico García Lorca’s 1936 tragedy ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ at the National Theatre next month.