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 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.

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.

You can take the boy out of England, but you can't take England out of the boy. And ummm, yes, I feel a huge emotional attachment to England.

So much luck! I'm not putting myself down, I'm not saying I don't have talent - I must have, to have got this far - but I honestly believe that some of the greatest actors in America are tending bar and waiting tables and driving taxis, and it will never happen for them.

I don't much care to watch myself. There are still probably 50 or 60 episodes of 'Frasier' that I have never seen.

I don't need the money after 11 years on 'Frasier,' and there aren't that many great roles onstage left for somebody my age. I'm more interested in playing those roles than I am in playing bit parts in movies.