I love working fast. I don't relish the director who wants to do 25 to 30 takes, or the actors who insist on doing 25 or 30 takes.

And I think it's because good cons are all based on the victim's need, and the successful con artist is the one, I guess, who can exploit that. I remember reading something about this, that one of the great traits of confidence tricksters is the level that they flatter their victim.

I think it would be a problem if Hollywood was casting British actors only as villains; if that were the case, then certainly there would be cause for concern.

I think enjoying each other in a creative way is usually a result of when you're doing something that might be problematic - might be a little difficult to uncover. I've done it once in a stage production; we came in for two days and, just as an experiment, the director had us reading each other's roles. You hear another voice interpreting a line that maybe you were having trouble with. It can be very helpful. But we weren't really in the kind of situation where that was necessary.

I like doing everything - theater and film, radio and TV, comedy and tragedy. I love it all. And I've never really planned anything - I've always looked at my job in a rather simplistic way. It's like being a plumber. One day you might be fixing an early 20th century showerhead that requires real detailed work. The other day you might just be clearing a sewer. Both jobs are very different, but all the tools come out of the same box. That's the way I look at acting.

When I was younger I was always big; I was a fat boy at school. I had an early growth spurt, and when I went to secondary school I was tall enough to be a policeman.

The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.