MICHAEL GAMBON

When I was doing 'Tales from Hollywood' at the National, I was invited to dinner by the choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan. He told me I had the heart of a dancer and asked me if I'd like to come on at the end of 'Romeo and Juliet' as a friar. I said I'd love to, but sadly, MacMillan died shortly after.

I promise myself that I would go and do a play every year.

There are more important ways of earning a living, aren't there? Like being a neurosurgeon. But some plays are very important, aren't they?

People should be shrouded in mystery. Especially actors. No, hang on, maybe actors should be blown up.

I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.

There's no subtext in 'Harry Potter,' really; it's all magic - anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it. Doesn't say much for acting, does it?

I just hate the idea of being well known. I know that is almost impossible if you're an actor who has done okay, but I've always fought against it.

Maybe that is why kids like Dumbledore: because he is funny rather than a miserable old sod with a long white beard.

All actors say they're concerned about the state of the theatre, but what they're really concerned about is that there'll be less work around.

I live in fear of being a contented passenger. I'd rather get parts I can't play.

I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.

I can't remember any of the films I've done. You go from one to another, and they all blend in to a big mass. You remember the costumes because you remember how you felt - that Western I did with Kevin Costner where I wore the big hat and the two guns, I remember that.

I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.

I don't play classical guitar. But I do in my mind. I've got it on a stand.

Yeah, I like causing trouble. It's the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff.

I sometimes think the theatre is more demanding because it requires things you don't have in films, like it requires you to make the people in the front row believe you and not look an idiot to them while the people right at the back can hear you.

I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.

I see film roles as lovely presents that come along now and again. I feel really lucky and say thank you very much. And if they fly me to L.A., I think, 'God, I must really be doing well.' I've worked with De Niro and Brando and Pacino, and that's made me feel very lucky. But the films have never meant a lot to me.

Theater actors are just tolerated. You have to be a movie star to be a celebrity.

Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.

Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films.

I want to be good all the time, so I feel anxious. But if you weren't like that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? If you went out happy down the road, la la la. I've never been like that. I don't want to be.

You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.

I just play him as myself, I don't ease myself into any role really. I stick a beard on and play me.

I am a theatre actor, but the last ten years I've taken parts in movies because it keeps me in money.