I had to turn down a part in 'Empire of the Sun.' It would have paid £15,000, which was a year's earnings for me then, but I was offered a season at the 'National Theatre.'

No one in their right mind would turn down the contracts I've been offered.

The few years leading up to that season hadn't been that good. It was a turn-around year. We had good team chemistry. There was a whole new attitude with the new coach.

Well, my wife always says to me, and I think it's true, it's very difficult for us to understand the Elizabethan understanding and enjoyment and perception of form as it is to say... it would be for them to understand computers or going to the moon or something.

Our job is to make manifest the story, to be it. In a sense, the theatre is such a big star itself, bigger than any Shakespearean actor I could hire, that we should take the opportunity to fill it with voice and verse and movement, not interpretation.

As we all know from the Roman empire, big empires go down if the borders are not well-protected.