Quotes

[on being applauded at Beverly Hills] "I walked into a charity reception at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and a thousand people were all standing up applauding. I thought, oh-oh, someone's coming. I thought Burt Lancaster or Tony Curtis had walked in behind me so I made way for this big star I thought had followed me into the room. I felt incredibly embarrassed."

[on how he feels about being remembered for something that was so long ago] "It doesn't worry me. One must accept certain things. One of the things I happily accept is that if people only remember me for Billy Casper then that's fine. It was a wonderful experience and obviously it had a great effect on so many people."

I feel a tremendous sense of journey about my life. It all started through Ken Loach and Kes was the catalyst.

[on jobs he didn't want] "I spent an hour in a mine as a boy and I knew I couldn't handle that kind of life. It was a gruelling existence. When I look back at my dad, I realise that each day he spent eight hours working and eight hours sleeping. That means he spent two thirds of his life in darkness."

[on his other jobs during filming of Kes (1969)] "I was doing a paper round in the morning. I remember they weren't particularly pleased that I was up at quarter to seven running around the local estate. They said, 'We'll pay your wages not to do your paper round.' Towards the end of the shoot, the football season started and I said I couldn't work past midday Saturday as I sold the football programmes at Barnsley. Again they asked how much I earned and agreed to pay my wages."

I know I've had a chequered career, a bit of a rollercoaster. But then that's because of, I guess, my appearance? Well, I'm not the boy-next-door type. I'm not the macho, martial arts type. I'm just an ordinary chap. An amiable guy.

It wasn't my life. Billy didn't have much in common with me and he didn't get on well at school. I enjoyed school. I had a very good relationship with many of my teachers and I enjoyed football. Billy knew about the training of birds. I knew nothing about birds whatsoever and I've discovered it doesn't just relate to such communities. I've had African-Caribbean people come up to me and, with eyes watering, have said Kes was one of the most wonderful films they had ever seen so it's a cross-cultural film which has surprised me and in some respects I'm really kind of thrilled by that.

Filmwise, Absolution is something I enjoyed doing with Richard Burton and Billy Connolly. That was great fun, but the role of the actor, unless you're in the top 7% or 8%, is a kind of roller-coaster and my career has been a roller-coaster in a lot of ways, but then I don't see life purely as being solely about acting. That's what I do for a living. That's what I enjoy doing obviously but life is about experiences and taking challenges as opposed to be fretting about where the next job is coming from.