I'm an actor first and foremost. My producing credentials are just to say, "Yeah, I love this story and now let's bring the people, the ensemble together," and I get out of the way. I have no desire to check on schedules and shooting schedules and money and stuff like that.

The violence and sexuality on TV today is exhilarating. You can explore every aspect of society. People's sexual orientations, the violence that goes within that... there are no holds barred.

Liam in Taken has been great to see. My boys love it. They love him. And there's just the gravitas to it. It's believable. You know the guy's endured. You know the guy's lived some life. Someone like Liam has lived a lot of life. Myself, I've lived a lot of life. There's loss. There's success. There's loss. There's doubts. And there's some heartbeat there.

I live a very simple existence when I'm not on the road. Because when I'm on the road making a movie, I'm away from home.

From '86 until the summer of last year, wherever I went, people would say, You would have made a great James Bond! Weren't you going to be James Bond? You should have been, you could have been, you may have been. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It was like unfinished business in my life. I couldn't say no to it this time around.

I was a commercial artist when I left school, but luckily I became an actor. I've painted for many, many years. Now the last few years it's gotten more serious.

And consequently, you have this rich looking film, which gives it this kind of muscular feel, deep focus, soft focus look. I'm not that great on development. I can see where things go wrong, but Beau, Carl and Mike Finch, they worked on it relentlessly. And then I would see the material and I would say, "Well, that just doesn't ring true. I don't quite know why that's happening."