If you've got Mystique as your girlfriend the fun you could have in bed - I've just imagined X-Men 3 might open with me in bed with Patrick Stewart.

If you've got Mystique as your girlfriend the fun you could have in bed - I've just imagined X-Men 3 might open with me in bed with Patrick Stewart.

So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor?

One school invited me down, as two pupils had come out, and the headmaster didn't know what to do about it. I said, 'How many students here are gay?' and he said, 'Just these two.' Clearly not. 'How many gay members of staff have you got?' He had no idea. And this was a concerned man.

You won't hear me talk about my politics, you won't hear me talk about my vegetarianism, you won't hear me comment on the Iraq war. You'll only hear me talk about being gay and being an actor. I am just public on those two issues.

Acting is a very personal process. It has to do with expressing your own personality, and discovering the character you're playing through your own experience - so we're all different.