I don't practise any religion but I am deeply interested in the answers that mankind has come up with to explain the human situation.

You could say Shakespeare is so extraordinary precisely because he was so ordinary. He had all the usual anxieties and understandings of what it is to have children, lose children, get married, struggle to make a living and so on.

Shakespeare wrote all there is that we need to know about dementia in 'King Lear.

I am never bored, never short of anything to do and I don't even ever feel lonely. I am quite gregarious and I get out and about a lot, but sometimes it is just wonderful to be on your own.

I actually wanted to be a writer long before I wanted to be an actor.

There is something essentially sanguine about me, which I am inclined to attribute to the fact that I was born by caesarean section. It must affect you.

The elderly are all someone's flesh and blood and we cannot just shut them in a cupboard and hand over the responsibility for taking care of them to the state.