What it's like to... Be a Hollywood actor

As well as being a regular on the most watched show on American telly, actress Alice Amter has featured alongside George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston and Vin Diesel in movies and shows including ER, The Good Girl and A Man Apart.

It's been a journey from uni student to the bright lights of LA, and so we had to ask: what's it like being a Hollywood actress?

"It's challenging!" says Alice. "The perception, certainly for those not in the business, is very different from the reality. People think it's all glamour, money and red carpets and stuff, but and when you get to a certain level, that is true. But I've been at it for 15 or 20 years and I'm still always trying to get to the pinnacle of the industry."

Alice is most well known for her role as Raj's Indian mum in Big Bang, but her own beginnings aren't so traditional.

"Most people when they watch Mrs Koothrapali assume that I grew up in an Indian household, but nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up in a children's home before moving in with my German single mother in Birmingham. The children's home was instrumental to my journey to Hollywood. I was four when I arrived and I distinctly remember one of the assistant nurses saying 'well, I think she looks like Sofia Loren'. I had no clue who Sofia was, but when I found out I thought 'oh my God, she's gorgeous'. That just followed me, and people kept saying it. I knew I wanted to do something with it."

After moving back with her mum, Alice worked hard at school and went on to university to study modern languages. It's a time she remembers fondly.

It's strange to interview someone that confident, so we had to ask – is that a quality you have to have to make it in Hollywood?

"You do need to be confident, because you're surrounded by people that are so competitive. You especially need to if you don't have people around you constantly telling you that you can do it, which I never had. I had the opposite, people would say 'well what makes you think you're so special?' And I'd just think 'well because I look like Sofia Loren!' So you do have to have confidence, and something that cannot waiver. If you're nervous or shy they're just going to roll their eyes and ask themselves how you ever got in front of them. It's brutal – it's like swimming with sharks."

But getting in front of those 'sharks' hasn't been easy.

"I was always academically sound, and I was never encouraged to pursue a life in the arts. All the teachers at school were like 'you're good at languages, you could work for the EU, be a translator, a diplomat or an interpreter', all of which were great careers. But I just had a desire to perform, to get in front of people and entertainment."

That didn't come around straight away. First, Alice went to Japan to teach English, staying awhile before heading to LA. She felt that Japan 'wasn't a place for an ambitious woman', so she moved to LA 'on a whim'. "I first went with some friends on holiday and I just loved it. I looked at it and thought 'wow, look at this place, it's so colourful and so sunny'. I decided then and there that I was going to move there."

And so she did. She says: "When I got to Hollywood I started off in theatre, which if you know anything about LA, it doesn't have a great theatre scene. But I decided that if I really wanted to get in, then that's how I'd go about it – getting my feet wet on the stage. I did back to back shows for about three years. I made no money, but two of the plays did win awards. After I'd done 12 plays, I knew I needed to make some money, so I started to do some extra work.

"The political aspect was that if you did extra work, then you were never regarded as an actor, so I left and started auditioning. Then six months later, there was an audition for an East Indian female doctor on ER! I saw it and called my agent saying 'get me that audition, I know that show backwards!' She did and I auditioned and then they cast me. The extras were so proud of me!"

Alice has been working ever since, but her role in The Big Bang Theory seems to be a defining one for her.

"Big Bang Theory is at the top of international TV. At the time I got the role, it was nowhere near as big as it is today. I came in on episode seven of the first season. It was just another audition for me. There were two roles available at the time, one for Raj's girlfriend and another for his mum. I was smack bang in the middle of the two, age wise, but felt it was smarter to go for the mother role because you've only got one mum, so the chances of coming back would be higher. And the girlfriend appeared once and never came back. . ."

Behind the scenes, Big Bang isn't the same as it appears on screen. "The other actors are very rich, for a start! It's a very professional working environment, everyone's cordial and friendly, but only to a point. You can't unload on them – apart from saying 'Hi, how's it going' when you get a coffee, they're just too busy learning dialogue. If you try to get too pally pally then you won't be back."

But Alice has been doing fine, and is pleased to be a part of it. She says: "Even if I never do anything else again, it's been pretty cool to be part of what's now a cultural phenomenon."