I've discovered I prefer to prepare a few notes or actually write the speech so I can really hone it down to hopefully be entertaining, try and get a laugh at least by the second line, and then say what you need to say.

There's often rarely any dialogue in a sex scene. With your fellow actor, it's good to talk about what the unspoken dialogue is, that's happening in the scene. You've got to play something rather than feel self-conscious or exposed.

What I appreciated was the fact that the script delved into how Australians were - and still are - condescended to by the English.

More people have a fear of speaking than a fear of death. So at a funeral, most people would want to be the person in the coffin rather than the person delivering the eulogy!

Within our culture, every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy, basically.

Nobody ever said that growing old would be easy. Just having to hold the newspaper out in your forties and then hair growing out of unusual parts of your body in your fifties. It's tough on the ego.

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.