People say there's no trace of an accent anymore, and there isn't because I worked very hard to lose it. And the reason I did that is a British accent in America is a real status symbol.

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

It was post war. It was very gray, very dreary. Everything was still rationed when I first saw the United States in 1951. I went over to visit my sister who was a war bride.

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

I took the fear of marriage from my parents' relationship, because I didn't want to end up in a relationship like that, whereas my brothers and sisters learnt a lesson from it and made sure they didn't carry it on into their own marriages.

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.

'Frasier' was a classy gig. I didn't for one minute think it was less prestigious or artistic than doing a play.