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.

I'm not qualified to do anything else. So there better be another job. I'm kind of stuck now. I'm enjoying my life and I'm enjoying my work, and I'm enjoying the fact that the work I'm doing is garnering some interest and that's great. I just hope that it continues.

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.

Screen work always boils down to that moment between the camera and the actor or the actors. It always boils down to that, ultimately. You serve the camera.

My wife and I use a lot of garlic and rosemary with roast lamb. It has to be New Zealand lamb. The domestic variety is too gamy, in my experience.

I've always loved teaching acting. I think it helps me to kind of get back to basics. It's like a refresher course for me as well, so in a sense, I'm hopefully learning as much as my students are - or at least discovering or re-discovering as much as they are. I find that when I teach, I'm reminded of my own sort of failings. I'm reminded of where I sometimes keep going wrong.

I've worked with actors who treat the first two takes like rehearsals. And that's okay. If the camera is on you and we're doing a scene where I'm off camera, I'm treating that as a rehearsal.