Courteney Cox is in mid-sentence when her two cavalier king charles spaniels, Harley and Hopper, enter her hotel suite in Los Angeles’s Mondrian hotel. No doubt overexcited by their surroundings, they then engage in what can most politely be termed a spot of canine coupling. Courteney shoots them an admonishing glance before conceding, ‘Well, this is a sexy hotel. You can’t exactly blame them.’

It’s just the sort of quip that Monica in Friends would have come up with, had the TV series that catapulted Courteney to worldwide fame ever chosen to film a scene featuring amorous dogs. And just as fans adored her character, you find yourself warming to Courteney after a very short space of time.

I’ve been told that she doesn’t feel comfortable discussing subjects of a personal nature, so it’s a surprise to find her so engaging and open – just the qualities that one would assume would make her such a good, well, friend. Her rat-a-tat conversation races from one topic to the next and she admits that she’s ‘high anxiety and my brain’s constantly going. I’m probably burning calories just talking to you right now.’

On today’s evidence, stray calories probably have a very short shelf life around Courteney. Dressed in a black trouser suit and flesh-toned blouse, she looks terrific
– and, at 46, far younger than her years.

‘I’m not going to say that I eat loads of carbs and don’t do any exercise because that would be lying,’ she says. ‘I eat healthily and I work out as much as I can. We’re all going to age – I plucked a white eyebrow the other day…there’s a lot of white things happening at the moment! But I read somewhere that the skin breathes at night, so I really take care to remove my make-up and moisturise in the evening.

‘Sleep’s important to me, too, and when I’ve slept well, I look better, and even if I don’t, I think I do, which helps,’ she laughs. Having tried Botox in the past, she admits that, ‘Sometimes they do too much or you end up looking weird, and so having Botox doesn’t make you feel good about yourself.’