I had a bad back for a couple of years. I had to do a lot of physiotherapy for it. What I couldn't understand at the time was why the therapists had me doing a lot of stomach work.

At the end of drama school, I made a contract with myself: I'd try acting for five years. I was 26. I had already spent eight years working in restaurants and gas stations. So I had seen enough small businesses to understand that that's what acting is: a small business.

I'm not a loner at all.

'One Night Only,' the words I'll be hearing from my agents when I tell them I'm coming back to Broadway.

My agent said to me five years ago, 'Hugh, I can see one day you... if I had to plan a goal for you, it's for you to have the kind of career that Sinatra had.'

I tended to favour the piano over the guitar because it stays in one place, which is what I like to do.

Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control.