I don't think in my family anyone looked after anyone. It didn't matter how old they were.

I was often very, incredibly naughty, and if I didn't come home at tea time I used to be sent to bed without any dinner. But people used to bring me things: I was better fed in bed.

I spoke French a bit, and I could speak a bit of this and that, and when you were taught those things by people who couldn't really do it, you can do some pretty wonderfully, imaginative horrific things to teachers.

The most surprising thing for my mother and father was when I was actually earning more money than them by the time I was about 18. They thought I was going to be the ne'er do well, who they'd have to keep worrying about.

Blank House was exactly a nice empty sheet where nothing was accountable because you were so naughty that you were in Blank House.

At boarding school you had to wear your name across your chest and your back, and obviously I had a pretty funny name. It wasn't Brown or Smith or Hughes.

I was a hard worker, and I always knew my lines.