After hosting Play School for 23 years, actor Noni Hazlehurst has strong opinions on what small children should be allowed to watch on television.

"I find it mystifying that people think three-year-olds should have access to just about anything available," says Hazlehurst, 55, who has two sons, Charlie, 20, and William, 14. "I'm sorry, I just find that absurd. Plonking them in front of the television, with everything done, it takes away their creative spirit.

"Play School was half an hour, twice a day, of unconditional love and acceptance from two adults who spoke to children in a language they understood."

Hazlehurst had strict rules when her sons were young - no television before school and no watching the news.

"I was determined they wouldn't be exposed to things unthinkingly. I tried to force them to listen to different types of music - I just tried to widen their world."

Both are now actors, singers and musicians (William plays Hazlehurst's son, Josh, in the series City Homicide, in which she stars as Detective Superintendent Bernice Waverley).

"It's fifth-generation on my side," explains Hazlehurst, whose father was a singer and pianist, while her mother tap-danced and performed variety routines.

It is perhaps surprising that her current role - starring as Grace Friedman, an atheist scientist in Grace, Mick Gordon and A.C. Grayling's play about faith and belief - is Melbourne-born Hazlehurst's debut with the Melbourne Theatre Company. But she returned to live in her home town only at the start of last year, after 30 years.

City Homicide brought Hazlehurst - plus sons and partner Ian Marden - back to Melbourne. She'd commuted for a year, from her home in Queensland, but found the travelling too hard.

"I just felt I was always behind and had various piles of paper in different locations. But it's been a bit surreal, living not far from where I was born. I never really expected to be back here."

Hazlehurst left Melbourne straight after school in 1971 to study drama in Adelaide, after telling the head of Sydney-based NIDA she didn't want to live in the harbour city. After failing an audition for the Melbourne Theatre Company, she moved to Sydney anyway and spent years living there ("a love-hate relationship") and in the Blue Mountains.

She made her name in television series from that era - The Box, Homicide, Division Four, Matlock Police and The Sullivans - as well as hosting Play School and starring in the film of Helen Garner's novel, Monkey Grip.

More recently, she hosted Better Homes And Gardens for a decade with former husband, John Jarratt, and performed in critically acclaimed films Little Fish and Candy, playing the mother of a drug addict in both.

"Being on a lifestyle show probably wasn't as creatively stimulating as other things might have been but it gave me some financial security which, for an actor, is amazing," she says.

Noni Hazlehurst stars in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of Grace until February 14.

The big issues

Biggest break Play School [which she hosted for 23 years]. It opened so many doors within me, in a sense. It made me have an understanding of the special needs of very small children and how badly we've served them as a community. And it made me understand communication and removed for all time a fear of moving cameras. It taught me so many things.

Biggest achievement Two home births [of sons Charlie, now 20, and William, 14]. I had a midwife and an assistant and a couple of friends. I felt better after those births than I have after anything else. They were profoundly wonderful experiences for me.

Biggest regret That I didn't have more children. I was 40 when I had William and I lost a baby after him.

Best investment My house in Queensland. I bought it for all the wrong reasons - I wanted to escape from where I was [in the Blue Mountains, NSW, after the break-up of her marriage to actor John Jarratt]. All those people who thought I'd gone mad and not been shot - I was thoroughly vindicated [when I sold it] but it was just dumb luck.

Worst investment I was talked into buying a block of land in NSW by someone who had not done their homework. The access to it for building was incredibly difficult.

Attitude to money Actors are atypical - when you have it, you have it, when you don't, you don't; there is no predictability. I would rather not do work I find compromising in some way than to do it for the money.

Personal philosophy You must never judge a book by its cover. I tend to be a bit naive and forget that people have agendas.