Laurence Olivier said if you have ambition to be a serious classical actor, you must be as fit as an athlete. For me, the breakthrough was going to live in California. I exercised. I drank less. It was one of the things about California that had a positive impact on me.

It is what you do from now on that will either move our civilization forward a few tiny steps, or else... begin to march us steadily backward.

I am told that there have been over the years a number of experiments taking place in places like Massachusetts Institute of Technology that have been entirely based on concepts raised by Star Trek.

I do what I do in my mother's name because I couldn't help her then. Now I can.

I've been a witness to unfairness in society all my life. To the conditions under which my mother worked all her life, working in an industrial weaving shed in the north of England. And it has been this feature of unfairness that has motivated me in all of my political thinking.

Violence against women is the single greatest human rights violation of our generation.

Comedy today is not what it was years ago. It's always changing, in particular to female comics. No longer are certain subjects considered to be a male preserve. Women can talk about sexuality and their bodily functions and it can be very, very entertaining. It's changed the impact of comedy acting.