I'm a dog person; I've had dogs all my life.

I was going to be living there and I didn't want to sound like a foreigner all my life.

Actually I was born in 1940 in Blackpool because my family lived in Manchester but Manchester was being bombed. So my mother was sent away to Blackpool to have me and then went back; so I lived my first eighteen years in Manchester and then emigrated to the States when I was eighteen.

I belonged to Stratford Children's Theater when I was a boy growing up in Manchester. Even then, I was always doing character parts.

I've played a lot of roles I haven't wanted to play, either because they needed someone in the theatre or because they couldn't do it without me 'cause they don't have anyone else the right age.

I don't take much from my own father, because he was a very austere, quiet, private man who would come home from work, go to his parlour and play Beethoven on his piano.

I like to learn the lines and not get any precontrived things in my head about the part. Just get on stage and see what the other actors are doing, and respond to them as honestly as I can.