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.

This is a call to action—not an action that will make things better in six months’ time or a year’s time, but action that might save someone’s life and someone’s future this afternoon, tonight, tomorrow morning.

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.

Where can I go that would give me the same level of satisfaction as an actor?

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.

When I'm meant to be standing in the wings, the only way to go is the ladies' toilets. It's the only time I've ever acted in the toilets.

I am not the archetypal leading man. This is mainly for one reason: as you may have noticed, I have no hair.