I started off dancing and playing sports, and I joined the drama stuff, the theatre stuff in middle school because my friends were involved, and it was kind of the cool thing to do.
After graduating from flares and platforms in the early 1970s, I started drama school wearing a pair of khaki dungarees with one of my Dad's Army shirts, accessorised by a cat's basket doubling as a handbag. Very Lady Gaga.
I got into university to study graphic design, and I got into drama school as well, so I had the choice whether I wanted to go down the sensible route or if I wanted to become an actor.
'McLeod's Daughters' was my first regular job out of drama school, and my first full-time role. That was great because I learned a lot, in terms of working in front of the camera.
I wasn't good at examinations, but I went to a very good secondary school - Bolton-on-Dearne - with wonderful teachers, who taught me drama and encouraged me in every way.
There are lots of people in the world who do have the advantage of going to a good drama school and just decide that they want to be actors. There's nothing wrong with an untrained actor; they have to get their training somehow, they have to learn.
I love film, but it's funny going to drama school for three years, where you spend most of your time training for theatre, then coming out and just doing films.
When the time came to make a decision about what do in life, I found myself thinking that acting was the thing I loved to do, so I applied to drama school. And then, I didn't get in - twice.
I didn't start drama school until I was 20, and I don't think I would have gotten nearly as much out of it had I gone when I was 18.
The thing a drama school can't give you is instinct. It can sharpen instinct but that can't be taught, and you have to have intuition. It's an essential ingredient.
I think I was about 18 before I decided I wanted to pursue acting. I went to drama school in Western Australia when I was 19.
I know what it's like to struggle for cash. When I went to drama school, I worked as a chambermaid to make ends meet.
I put so much pressure on myself to be perfect. Between homework and sports and drama and being social, I slept about four hours a night through high school and college.
Playing athletics, playing a lot of different sports, going to drama school... I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything, so I ended up being pretty average at everything.
I feel like a lot of my past career was going to film school, making a lot of different kinds of movies. I made a bunch of comedies, I made one drama and I made a couple musicals.
There's a huge gulf between people who can afford to go to drama school and those who can't.
I was shy and really into my school work and my drama. Then I joined 'EastEnders' at 16, and it was work, work, work. You become very isolated. I rarely went out and so didn't get to meet anyone.
Actually, the year anniversary of what you just heard, my son Grahame and I are going to be in a play together, and I'm acting for the first time in front of an audience that doesn't consist of a high school drama class.
I figured most of the best actors around 20 years old would all be at drama school, where they're tied up and contractually can't work, so I saw there must be a gap in the market for a young actor like me.
I think if I had come out of drama school and been an instant Hollywood superstar, I would be taking long, leisurely holidays.
But to do it professionally is a quantum leap difference and my father had to be persuaded by these kind of Ivy League professors that I should go to the Yale Drama School, another one of the stories in there.
