The hero of the 'Peanuts' is Charlie Brown. I play the dog that sleeps on the top of his dog box who's a philosopher. I'm drawn to that. So I'm drawn to Barbossa as I'm drawn to Einstein, because they are outsiders, and I suppose, as a character actor, that's the turf that you're locked into, in a way.
I always felt thrilled and amazed that I could put actor on my tax form.
There's four biggies. There was Elizabeth I, George III, Victoria, and the current queen, who really dominated four eras.
I always had a fantasy of being a chef, because I like kitchen life.
I asked, 'What is this guy?' They said, he's part-fish, part-bird, maybe a bit of lizard, and you don't have to go through five hours of makeup to play him. That was good enough for me.
People tend to think of Brisbane as a sleepy, sub-topical place. I don't know. It's like Baltimore or something. I don't know. You would hear the family dramas going on behind closed doors.
It was nice to play something that felt a little more muted or internalized in 'The Daughter.'
I didn't know the Green Lantern comics at all. I was a Superman reader.
Einstein was very attracted to Mozart. There's a mathematical, classical structure to the music, and I think he identified with that very strongly. I think there also is a connection between being a genius and a polymath.
I like roles that are on the extreme ends of the spectrum, and there's special appeal in exploring these slightly forgotten plays that people might think of as subjects for academic term papers instead of live theater.
I enjoy roles that involve a task outside of my natural capabilities - for example, playing a number of musical instruments or sword fighting or cutting a suit. You have to look as though you can do it, without too much editing.
I do love perusing the dictionary to find how many words I don't use - words that have specific, sharp, focused meaning. I also love the sound of certain words. I love the sound of the word pom-pom.
Someone told me that there's a connection to Superman, that in an early edition of the Green Lantern comics, Tomar Re was the envoy to Krypton. That was fascinating to me.
Within our culture, every school has a swimming pool. We lived on the coast. People swam in the surf. It's a very sporty nation and at that particular time anyone who had an artistic bent was very much an outsider. So if you liked reading or ideas or playing the piano then your dad viewed you as a sissy, basically.
It's their story, and I got to be the guy in the back while they were in the foreground.
I often thought I was in the wrong business. I was pretty seriously thinking of tossing it in before I shot Shine. I do not know why. I was pretty restless, I had been through a bad period of stress induced anxiety - panic attacks - and I was not sure of what I wanted to do.
When people come to me and tell me I was terrific in this or that, I do not want to fall flat on my face the next time. But, tough, I have fallen flat before. You just get up and dust yourself off.
I did not want to put myself on the line, as an Australian playing Britain's greatest comic actor. The fans of Sellers are obsessive, possessive - and aggressive. I did not want to risk their anger - or my own reputation.
This is what happens when you are on the wrong side of 40. Young adults, who could be your children, are now working with you. I was playing their parents or mentor. I started to think: Oh, I am not part of that group any more.
My eye muscles hurt now when I read our MasterCard bill.
