I'm probably not very funny. The scripts just don't come in, or the ones that do aren't that good. I suppose I'm just an old drama queen, really.

All the great Shakespeare plays are about killing. Alas, poor Yorick, that's about death. And in Romeo and Juliet everyone up ends up dying. The greatest dramas in the world are all about sex, violence and death.

Elaine and I got married in summer 1979, we went on our honeymoon and came back for the premiere of Scum. All of sudden my face was on billboards in Leicester Square and people were crowding outside the cinema, going mad about the film. It was a complete shock.

I'm lucky enough to have a kid with me who is actually really intellectually up with what's going on in the world and actually puts his money where his mouth is and goes and does something about it; he goes and talks about it. It livens you up a bit and it brings you into the 21st Century.

The original 'Edge of Darkness' was fantastic, a fabulous series. It was of its time, but this film version shows that times really haven't changed.

When somebody meets me in the street, they say, 'Hello, how you doing?' And I say the same back. It's just two minutes of your time and it's alright. I don't like people taking liberties when I'm with my family, but mostly people are really polite and that's lovely.

But then when you go through the process of making the film and you sit in the cinema two years later and your jaw hits the floor, it's quite sad in a way because you're looking at yourself - facially anyway - and see the way you looked when you were 20.