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

I knew all about Edward VIII's abdication, George VI becoming the king and having a stammer, but nothing about how he got rid of it.

Most films I've worked on have had large casts, but they've been wonderful people. I think the monkey in Pirates of the Caribbean is the most temperamental costar I've had. It would throw tantrums like you wouldn't believe.

I would always slip away to the cinema. I always found something absolutely extraordinary about the fact that these actors were always kind of kicking hard at some new dimension they were doing on film.

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.

You had to be into sport and, sad to say, I'm a traitor to my country because I don't have a sporting bone in my body.

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.