I spent two years in the military service, then I trudged around in repertory for quite a while. I somehow wound up at the National Theatre, though, and then I was definitely on my way.

I have no education, I have no academic background in painting or in music, but I write music and I compose music and I write and I sell paintings, and my rule is, well, they can't arrest me.

We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.

I wanted revenge; I wanted to dance on the graves of a few people who made me unhappy. It's a pretty infantile way to go through life - I'll show them - but I've done it, and I've got more than I ever dreamed of.

How do you play Hannibal Lector? Well just don't move. Scare people by being still.