At first, I simply wanted to get a basic understanding of sign language, but as time went on, I really got the bug and wanted to become proficient so that I could make good use of my skills.

I'm hoping I can fill a gap by helping to advise people on acting mechanics - the kinds of things that, looking back, I would have really benefited from as a teenager.

It's really important to remember that disability is diversity, and that disabled actors and disabilities are something that is hugely under-represented in film.

I've done my fair share of fundraising over the years, and I know how difficult that can be, so I could only imagine people's reaction when I was asking them to part with their hard-earned cash for a movie.

I have always had a tendency to keep enlarging problems which I personally think is the way the world works... that seeing anything one dimensionally on the kinds of political, sort of big issues of human progress is going to be a distorted view of things, which is why over my career I have gone seemingly from subject to subject to subject.

I got typecast early in my career as the guy who is very intense. Once you get into a certain mold, people see you that way, as much as it's disproved time and again.

At various times in my undercover career I had either a full beard, a short-cropped beard, Fu Manchu, a plain simple moustache or just a goatee. We did that - generally we would have a look that we would maintain for anywhere from 3 to 6 months.

I really didn't feel that my motion picture career was going the way I wanted it to go.