One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.

And from the first moment that I ever walked on stage in front of a darkened auditorium with a couple of hundred people sitting there, I was never afraid, I was never fearful, I didn't suffer from stage fright, because I felt so safe on that stage. I wasn't Patrick Stewart, I wasn't in the environment that frightened me, I was pretending to be someone else, and I liked the other people I pretended to be. So I felt nothing but security for being on stage. And I think that's what drew me to this strange job of playing make-believe.

I like things that are funny - in everyday conversation, in incidents that you see, in watching TV or watching film. Comedy has always had an impact on my life.

What identifies an individual as a king is how other people behave towards him. All authority is assumed, and if other people don't accept your authority then you don't have it. Perhaps the critical thing to being a convincing figure of authority is actually not to try too hard.

I wasn't campaigning for a role in a Hollywood television series, it was a fluke. So you've got to have a measure of good luck, you really have, being in the right place at the right time.

Whenever the lion fish in the fish tank in the captain's ready room died it was always a sad moment.

I was brought up in a very poor and very violent household. I spent much of my childhood being afraid.