“The older you get, the more you realise how happenstance has helped to determine your path through life.”

I tend to play rather odd men. People that are slightly odd or eccentric, or have a more particular attitude to life.

If you’re a serious actor, it’s when you know you’re going to die tomorrow that you really start to feel it.

I have to say that I’ve always believed perfectionism is more of a disease than a quality. I do try to go with the flow but I can’t let go.

Lord, thy one-liners are as good as thy tricks. Thou art indeed an all-round family entertainer.

Apart from the fact that your physical ability starts to decline, I also think someone in their fifties being childlike becomes a little sad. You’ve got to be careful.

In the modern media age, we are rarely surprised by what we see.

Excellence is not an act but a habit.

It’s not easy to take a sit-com and turn it into a feature.

I enjoy racing historic motorcars from the ’50s and ’60s.

I don’t think you should be too absolutist about what you play and what you don’t play.

But generally speaking, I tend to be quiet and introspective.

I suddenly think the job of acting is a difficult one. It’s not as flip, irrelevant, and shallow a calling as I thought it was in the Eighties.

I’m not particularly intellectual or clever or minority-focused in my creative instincts.

Marketing is what gets you noticed.

The arts community still has a long lasting cynicism of the importance, or the artistic value, of comedy. Comedy is just farting about for money.

Your services might be as useful as a barbershop on the steps of a guillotine.

The older one gets, the more one feels that the present moment must be enjoyed, comparable to a state of grace.

People think that their world will get smaller as they get older. My experience is just the opposite. Your senses become more acute. You start to blossom.

Life is meant to be lived to the fullest, no matter your age.

Problems begin the moment we’re born. We’re born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That’s inevitable. But what can you do? That’s what it is to live.

Everything is so dreamy when you are young. After you grow up it kind of becomes, just real.

Believe it or not we are all born unique and special.

Attitude defines your age.

Yet once being born there is no turning back.