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 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.

I've got a business manager and he'll just come right out and say, 'It wasn't the best part for you,' or 'It was okay, but I've seen you do better.' So when he does say, 'Wow that was great!,' then I know that he means it and it's something.

I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law, so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought, 'No, I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher; that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.

I'm a dog person, I've had dogs all my life. But you see, it's not really a dog. It's more like a little robot. It's an actor. It displays no emotion whatsoever. I swear that dog doesn't know any of us even though we've done five seasons of Frasier.

And then I went to visit my sister in the states and all of a sudden it was just like, it's like... it's like the movie Wizard of Oz when all of a sudden it changes from Black and White to glorious Technicolor.

My first acting class was taught by a little known playwright, David Mamet, who then cast me in my first play, opposite John Malkovich.