I played the Piccadilly Theater with "Gypsy" and also the Old Vic, and I've done other shows in London, but not for 40 years.

Everything I did actually helped to build the revenue, shall we say, of experience, which enabled me to play a variety of roles as I got older.

The theater is magical and addictive.

Roles came to me. I was very, very lucky in that respect. Great directors, great writers, great producers - they saw something in me that they wanted for their picture or their play or whatever it was, whether it was Edward Albee or whether it was - or Peter Hall, directors. They would come to me, thank God. I was lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

I have never directed. But I think I could. I have thought about it. I'm a bit long in the tooth to start.

The collaboration really begins once the rehearsal starts. This is when the actor takes his place, because he becomes the one who is going to bring the words of the author off the page.

Psychologically, you learn the values that are inherent in the dialogue, and you learn to apply it to the way you read the lines. That's acting. You're not yourself saying those lines, you're somebody else.