The trick to acting is not to show off; it's to think the thoughts of the character. I was lucky because when I started acting, it was doing jobs above pubs. I learned to act in anonymity, so by the time people saw me, I knew what I was doing. I was crap for years, but no one saw me being crap. It's a trade you learn.

As a working-class actor, leaving school with no qualifications, being a printer and then becoming an actor and then working with people who to a certain extent had had a leg up. I never had that advantage. It's less an artistic need to express myself and more a need to prove myself.

There's no great mystery to acting. It's a very simple thing to do but you have to work hard at it. It's about asking questions and using your imagination.

When I think of character actors, I think of Spencer Tracy; I think of Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall. When I was a young lad watching films, my eyes were on them - watching 'On the Waterfront,' my eyes are on Rod Steiger and Karl Malden, not on Brando.

I was brought up in a house full of women; the first time I realised no one was interrupting me was when I was on stage - that's probably the subconscious reason I became an actor.

I'm not one of these actors who can make a bad script good. Some actors, a script can be terrible, and they can bring something to it and make it really special. I can't.

I wasn't one of the ones voted most likely to succeed when I was at drama school, but I persevered and concentrated on the acting rather than going to the right parties and getting the right agent. Eventually, after ten years, it paid off.