The learning curve on soaps is through the roof because it's a three-camera setup. There's a master and then there's two singles. And the great thing about soaps, and soap actors will tell you, is that when you get your line wrong, they don't re-shoot it. They just cut to the person listening.

I worked on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange back when they used to write tickets. And I was just a runner. So a guy would write a ticket and I would run it, and it was endless. That was a hard job. And I dug tungsten... for a coal company in Wyoming one summer, and that was pretty miserable.

You know, post-production is a bit of a grind to me. If I'm producing a film, I really... I mean I like editing, but all the other crap, the color mixing and... it's all a grind. And so as a result I cut back producing the number of films I was producing.

I'm a homebody. If I'm not working I'm with my family being a dad.

I had given myself a sort of early retirement when I left the scene in 1985. All of the people in my family worked until they dropped, including my father. I decided to take a little time to enjoy life. I traveled, built my dream house, rescued a few dogs. My return to music, and acting, was deliberate, part of my musical arc.

My mother worked in advertising and my father was a journalist. But they split up when I was three and I grew up in a single-parent family. My mum brought my brother and I up.

My God, it's laundry and family when I come back home. I've got to see my brother and kids, and my sister-in-law, my aunts, my uncles, cousins; everybody is here.

I think a family is the best way to open up the appeal of a show because everyone has a mother. Everyone has a father. Everyone has cousins or siblings. Everyone's trying to pursue their romantic ideals and their relationship ideals.