Greatest American Hero, I really dug that as a kid, because it had an alienation to it, where he was given a gift and didn't know why, and yet he was forced to do something with it and he was very much an out-of-place character who was trying to cope with his own surroundings, and I can kind of relate to that guy.

One time we stayed at a B&B, and there were a couple of hippies who had this nice little area and they let us sleep in their beds that they had in the back.Then the woman suggested we go out and lie on some cushions and look up at the stars and look for UFOs and she said, "You know, I do this all the time," and I was like, "Okay..." So there we are, lying there next to this amazing loch, and we're looking up in the stars and I don't really know what I was expecting, but to see some sort of metallic object.

When I did The X-Files, there was certainly less of that because the script was as it was and it was such a wonderful script and it was quite complex and there wasn't a hell of a lot of improvising I could do to bring to the table, but I guess what I did bring was a sense of self and that the reason I was cast was because I did come across as someone who possibly was only human for a short time.

It's a funny thing because it's what the people say when they come across a ghost situation is that it does freak you out, but then you do get over it - for some reason you're not scared to come across it again.

In New Zealand we had this colossal squid, which was discovered just off the shores of New Zealand, between New Zealand and Antarctica back in 2003. It's the biggest squid ever found, and I know that there's things living down in the depths of the ocean that do explain the Kraken - you know, these giant things that people saw back in the day, that could take ships down - and so I know that there's stuff out there, and I like the idea that we haven't solved everything yet.

I've always been into monsters.

My optimistic outlook on life is to sort of be positive and take everyone at face value.