I did not want to put myself on the line, as an Australian playing Britains greatest comic actor. The fans of Sellers are obsessive, possessive - and aggressive. I did not want to risk their anger - or my own reputation.

When people come and tell me I was terrific in this or that, I do not want to fall flat on my face next time. But, tough, I have fallen flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off.

I suddenly became aware over the last couple of years that I'm in my sixties. I never thought about it. I thought I'd better start acting my age or find roles that are going to be interesting to me in the sexagenarian repertoire, because it's not what you do in your forties or fifties.

Sometimes you do feel a script that glows in your hand the moment you start reading it. By page four of Shakespeare in Love, I said, 'I have to be in this movie.

There's four biggies. There was Elizabeth I, George III, Victoria, and the current queen, who really dominated four eras.

My kids started school, so having a strong base in Melbourne has been a key priority. I'm not daunted by the travel. People say, 'It's so far to Australia,' and I say, 'You get on the plane, you eat well, you sleep, you wake up - and you're there.'

If in the sex scene you happen to be naked in front of a lot of other people you've just got to put that aside, in the same way that you have to put that aside in a fully-clothed intense dialogue scene because you're entering into that particular imaginative state of play.