Presenting the Oscars was the most nerve-racking job I have ever done in show business. It's very much a live show: they have comedy writers waiting in the wings, and as you come off between presentations, they hand you an appropriate gag to tell.

You're your first best audience, long before anybody else hears you. So don't be an easy audience. Keep asking for more.

I'm not tough anymore, I'm 82.

I've had such a great time, I'd like to come back as me - and do it all over again.

There are loads of black actors.You can't say: I'm going to vote for him, he's not very good but he's black, [so] I'll vote for him. You've got to give a good performance.

I don't want to be an English actor doing the greatest American accent you've ever heard. I want to be an American doing nothing.

In my early days, I didn't know what a good film or a bad film was, and I was trying to make some money. As it happens I was lucky. I made some good films.