He was somebody who made me think, I suppose, about the contemplative life. I've always been a city fellow, but I've often had vague thoughts about 'checking out' and perhaps going into a monastery and just seeing what it was like. ↗
I had to think long and hard about what it would imply, what it would mean. Would it mean any alterations of one's lifestyle? Or, more than that, the way that people regarded you? The way they reacted to you if you had a Sir in front of your name? ↗
I think actors always retain one foot in the cradle. We're switched on to our youth, to our childhood. We have to be because we're in the business of transferring emotions to other people. ↗
I think my parents were happy that I'd gone to university and gotten a degree in history so they thought, 'Well if acting doesn't work for him, he can always become a history teacher or something.' Fortunately, the acting worked out. ↗
It's too hard a life for me. I could only do it - check out in that sense - if I checked out somewhere that was luxurious and within hailing distance of civilization. ↗
One of the last episodes was all about a flood. We were working in the rain till all hours, and it was muddy and it was cold and it was damp, and it was hours under the hoses. That was not pleasant. That was not pleasant. ↗
Originally they wanted it to be bigger, but I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded to have the smallest tonsure that they could get away with. A tonsure that could still be seen, but, I worried about my social life! ↗
What was so good about it was that the set that they originally built stayed there, and weathered over the five years. It got five summers and five winters of weather. It became more and more authentic as we worked in it, and they added bits to it. ↗
I was very good at sitting. But I just read so much research about how horrible sitting is for you. It's like, it's really bad. It's like Paula-Deen-glazed-bacon-doughnut bad. So I now move around as much as possible. ↗
I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress. ↗