In the steel-and-glass society that we live in, the value system would be that the lawyer, with the Mercedes and the fine suit and the Ivy League education, was more valued than the minority without the education. But on the island, the rules are changed. It's the person who can make a fire or who can make friends. A kind human soul is valued.

I was a section commander in the parachute regiment [in the British army].

My mother never criticized any idea I had. She thought anybody could have anything. Even if I was in a poor family that worked at Ford Motor Company and lived in Dagenham. I could have told my mother that I wanted to work in pantomime. And she'd have said, "Great. I can help you."

Actors are the neediest people you're ever going to meet. And their relationship to real life, tenuous though it is because of all the wranglers, the money, everyone throwing everything at them every day of their lives -I think they're pretty much who they were before.

If you are the leader, you don't have the right to say things like "Ugh, didn't eat this week I was so busy." "Haven't slept." I look sideways at those signs of bravado, which are intended to make one feel that the person is working so hard. I don't think that way.

In the steel-and-glass society that we live in, the value system would be that the lawyer, with the Mercedes and the fine suit and the Ivy League education, was more valued than the minority without the education. But on the island, the rules are changed. It's the person who can make a fire or who can make friends. A kind human soul is valued.

The Clash, in particular, transcends any category.