Animals are certainly more sophisticated than we used to think. And we shouldn't lump together animals as a group. Crows and chimps and dogs are all highly intelligent in very different ways.
I spent a lot of my life - 20 years of it - in war, training army trackers and commanding a tracker unit, and then in the Game Department, tracking lions and elephants and poachers. So I've spent literally thousands of hours tracking people or animals, and training others to do it.
If I could stomach the awful part of being a veterinarian, which involves sticking your hand up animals' behinds, I would be a vet.
My whole background is character acting: weird costumes, fat suits, playing men, playing animals - I've never played anyone with whom there's any overlapping Venn diagram.
Say no to circuses that exploit and abuse animals.
Animals, they are one of the most beautiful gifts we have and, you know, if there are people that have compassion, there are very few people that put their money into animal rescue organizations. And if there is someone that has that passion, animals need all the help they can get.
The day I set foot in Hyderabad, I saw an animal being hit by a vehicle. The city did not have a shelter for the bleeding animal, and I brought it home. In less than a month, our house was home to all kinds of animals - a buffalo with a broken hip, a blind mongoose, goats, dogs, cats.
I would like to clarify that the only adoption I am involved is through the Blue Cross Animal Welfare Shelter where we provide healthy and friendly homeless animals for adoption.
Birds and animals in the wild migrate every year to safer and nurturing pastures, leaving behind the old environment. After nurturing their young ones, they return to thrive in the old environs. I use that analogy to meditate. You migrate to your inner soul, nurture the strength, light and creativity there, and return.
The majority of the world is empty space. Empty space, empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people - it's all empty space. That's amazing!
