I shall miss all the people in it and the great fun we had doing it. I enjoyed playing the character very much. It was a very, very special character and a very special series. And the camaraderie of it all. I loved it.

I think that each character has fascinated and interested me enough to want to play him.

Real-life people are often the hardest to play, people that you recreate who have actually lived, because you have to live up to people's knowledge of those characters.

My first course came and I put down my book, and I just happened to put up my hand to scratch my head and discovered that my toupee had been blown by the wind and was folded over backwards on the top of my head!

I'm always conscious of the fact that I am part of a profession that is 80% permanently unemployed. So, to be working in any sense is to be privileged.

I've been a professional actor now for 38 years. A long time. And it's wonderful to earn your living doing something that you love. To think people actually give you money for it!

It was never physically dangerous except when I nearly fell off a horse, but it was physically arduous - especially when you were working late at night.