In England, I was a Cockney actor. In America, I was an actor.
My closest friends are Roger Moore, who is an actor, Sean Connery, who is an actor, Terry O'Neill, who is a photographer, Johnny Gold, who was the boss of Tramp, and Leslie Bricusse, who is a composer.
Things are not quite what they seem always. Don't start me on class, otherwise you'll get a four-hour lecture.
For Cider House Rules, I was doing a New England accent.
To me, 'Educating Rita' is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.
I was in Korea. I've noticed all my life I see elderly people who have been close to death in an illness and they're absolutely cured and they say, now I know how to live my life. I've seen death. That happened to me when I was 19. It was a terrible, terrifying thing. And I live my life like those people decided to do when they were old. So, since I was 19, I've had the most fun possible every single day, even when I had a rough life. It was the army which taught me about life, and the theater which taught me how good it could be.
Just because I have made a point of never losing my accent it doesn't mean I'm an eel-and-pie yob.
My career is going better now than when I was younger. Now I get the part. Back then, I'd get the girl.
I've been in every disco in the world. I saw a picture of my wife Shakira and I dancing in Studio 54; I didn't even know someone had taken that picture.
I have enough money not to do pictures ever. I'm seventy years old. I don't want to get up at 6:30 in the morning and learn ten pages of dialogue to do with a bunch of creeps I don't like. It's gotta be fun for me.
My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda, they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson, who wasn't too cool. He was a nice, homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked.
They use those monitors now, and sometimes you'll be doing a shot and then suddenly you see yourself on one of those monitors, and I always say turn the monitor round, I don't want to see myself on the monitor. I never see myself 'til the movie's finished.
I think it would be great for the Academy to recognize old age.
When you're a young actor you ring your agent every evening. It's not like when you're in Hollywood where you do one picture a year. You just hope you get a day on television.
If you're a leading actor you don't work with another actor. You work with a lady.
Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
