Liv Tyler had said she once considered quitting acting as she struggled to find her place following changes brought about by social media.

The star, 40, daughter of Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler, has been acting for more than 20 years but said she was not used to promoting herself on social networking sites and was not certain she wanted to.

She said: “A world changing so much, I was just kind of trying to find my place in all of that.

Liv Tyler in Gunpowder
Liv Tyler in Gunpowder (BBC/PA)

“I think naturally as a person I’m a little bit shy, and the way the world is now, with social media and modern times, you’re kind of expected… the role of an actor or an entertainer has shifted away from just being an entertainer to actually sort of promote yourself, and do actor things, and there is the whole other thing.

“And I think that at the time that I said that, I was struggling to know if I liked that or not, how I felt about that. And if I wanted to do those things.

“And then I kind of realised that when I was focusing on things that I did like as opposed to things that I didn’t like about the entertainment industry, I could kind of find my place in it a bit more.”

Mother-of-three Tyler, 40, said she was thinking about quitting acting when she was cast in US series The Leftovers in 2014.

She confessed: “I did have a kind of weird conversation with myself where I kind of made a prayer to the universe of, ‘If this doesn’t happen it means that I am allowed to kind of pursue my other interests and then if it does happen then I’m not supposed to give up on acting’, and then it happened.”

Liv Tyler, Edward Holcroft and Kit Harington in Gunpowder
Liv Tyler, Edward Holcroft and Kit Harington in Gunpowder (BBC/PA)

Tyler, who can soon be seen in new BBC One drama Gunpowder, welcomed her third child, daughter Lula, in 2016.

She said being a mother has had a positive impact on her career.

She said: “Pregnancy and childbirth and being a mother has helped me to know myself more and know my strengths and my weaknesses, and it kind of makes me have a slightly more… it has definitely changed the way I look at my job, because when I am leaving my house and leaving my children to go to work there is a new kind of purpose to it.

“And I feel really grateful for it and for the time that I have, but I’ve got kind of a more ‘f**k it’ attitude, particularly with acting.”

:: Gunpowder starts on BBC One on Saturday October 21.