There's a mythical status to the Tony Awards. When you're growing up as an actor, you hear about Broadway and the Tonys, but it's not something you ever expect to experience.

It is strange how your understanding of a play changes. It normally happens after a performance and you suddenly think, 'So that's what that line really means' - it's like a light going on.

For me, this profession is about having a career where you can go on working for 60 years, so I'm not particularly bothered by things to do with fame; I like to think that I just do what I do.

I had a schoolmaster who was a supernumerary at Glyndebourne Opera, and through ,I got a job as a walk-on in Peter Hall's production of 'Don Giovanni' there in 1975 or 1976.

Comedy has always been important in my family. If you got in a good joke at the dinner table, it meant more than almost anything else.

My mom was like, 'You talk so much. You have too much energy. Why don't you just join the play or something?' It was a comedy, and I got laughs in rehearsal, but onstage, in front of a whole audience, I got a lot of laughs.

Buried Alive' is a little scary, but also a comedy at the same time.

When I was doing research on the M.C.s and spending time with these cats, one of the things that struck me and made me realize that I could deliver this world to an audience was their really dark and acute sense of humor.