It would be nice to be a professional pilot. I'm an amateur pilot at the moment. I've got a lot of friends in the RAF and I don't think I've ever met a group of people who love their job as much as they do.

I tend to get starstruck with sports people. I was on a chat show with retired Scottish footballer Denis Law and I just lost it and couldn't talk to him.

It sounds very pretentious, but I don't lie. It's too uncomfortable. A lot of people think because you're an actor that makes you a good liar, but one of the things I can't articulate is a bad lie.

My very first professional job was with a theatre company in 1965 and the first job they gave me was literally shovelling sh*t. I was an assistant stage manager and they told me to clear out the prop store. I opened it up and no-one had been in there for 25 years and it was inches deep in rat sh*t. So before I could get anywhere I had to clear it up. I thought, 'All these years of training, the best drama school in the world, and this is what I'm doing.'

Are there any celebs I'd like to meet? I'd love to meet the Dalai Lama.

I think to be a rich and successful person in Roman society would be pretty fabulous. They had all of the comforts we want now - central heating, baths, medicine. If I could choose not to indulge in all the things they did I don't agree with, then I could be perfectly comfortable without a mobile phone, computer or anything.

I can be very stubborn. I'm very opinionated and if people cross me at work - if people who don't know about the job try telling me what to do - I become very stubborn and really rather unpleasant.