To me, 'Educating Rita' is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.

I'm a frustrated stand-up comic. If you hand me a microphone and I get one laugh, then I'll go on for 20 minutes.

I regard myself as someone who is retired but who occasionally goes out to work. In fact, I'm offered so much good stuff that it's not so occasional.

Am I a car aficionado? No: for me, cars have always been just for transport. I didn't even know anyone who had a car until I was 14 or 15.

I'm every bourgeois nightmare - a Cockney with intelligence and a million dollars.

There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.

The three actors I admire the most are all dead. Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy and the French actor, Jean Gabin. They're all very natural, sort of masculine without being overly macho.