Broadway has a lot more razzle-dazzle than the West End. In terms of the everyday work routine, it's not different, but there's a cachet about Broadway that lends itself to more anticipation among audiences.

There's a mythical status to the Tony Awards. When you're growing up as an actor, you hear about Broadway and the Tonys, but it's not something you ever expect to experience.

In England, I'm known for playing villains.

Sometimes I look at Helen Mirren on stage and think, 'You really are the Queen.' You see people bowing to her at the stage door!

For me, this profession is about having a career where you can go on working for 60 years, so I'm not particularly bothered by things to do with fame; I like to think that I just do what I do.

Just observing - that's the best skill of all for an actor!

It's a great luxury to have the writer with you on a new play because you can write and re-write, just trying to get the arc of the story, of their relationship right.

I worked as a clerical assistant at the Department of Health and Social Security for about three months before I went to drama school.

It's funny: what one tends to think of as the best work you've done is not what other people think is the best you've done.

I had a schoolmaster who was a supernumerary at Glyndebourne Opera, and through ,I got a job as a walk-on in Peter Hall's production of 'Don Giovanni' there in 1975 or 1976.