Acting

If someone was to ask me what my favourite film was I would probably give a different answer each time. Sometimes it might be Annie Hall and other times The Godfather – any of them. I loved Coppola's other films too as well as the Godfather trilogy particularly The Conversation with one of the best actors who ever uttered a word; Gene Hackman.

Another time the favourite film might be Manhattan – the pattern you can see here are films either by Francis Ford Coppola or Woody Allen but there is another director I really like and he is Martin Scorsese – oh don't forget David Lynch and . . . well you know what I mean!

Martin Scorsese wanted to be a priest when he was growing up but he was fascinated by film and as he was raised in Little Italy he was very heavily influenced in his art by the mafia, gangsters, the wise guys, the mob.

When you're an artist you are influenced by your surroundings and that's how you express yourself.

When I lived in America actors would always talk about the work, the craft! 

You see work to me is digging a ditch and craft is something you do the same all the time. 

Making a box; making a pair of trousers; pottery (although they may call that art).

My point is that art is something you either create, not knowing how it will turn out, or intemperate – like acting.

A great deal of the acting in America, where they call it a craft, is an art, and the acting in Britain, where they call it an art, is a craft.

When I first had an audition in America I learned the lines, worked really hard, and when I entered the room there was the director sitting by himself with a film camera. I was with him for about 20-30 minutes. I knew the lines, knew how I wanted to do it, and got on with it.

He said I needed to get away from the script – I had learned it too much.

I know what he meant now.

Spontaneity!

It didn't look as if I was saying the words for the first time.

I remember asking him about my accent and he was the one who said the magic line to me put 2 English actors together and the first thing they talk about is an accent.

And he was right!

In my time there I saw many other American actors in their auditions saying their lines as if for the first time even when reading. Over here we decide what voice we need to use; what accent.

Over there it is their own voice and however they speak.

If you put the radio on here and listen to Front Row, for instance, and they are interviewing a well known British star, you can tell straight away whether you are listening to them being interviewed or whether they are playing a clip from their movie. 

In other words you can tell when they are acting.

So to all the people who have worked with me over the years!

That's why I don't learn my lines.

I'm kidding, of course, but it's something we have to think about all the time – even at this lofty age.

There's more to the difference between Americans and the British than the way schedule is pronounced or whether it's sled of sledge.

I was going to talk about Woody Allen but I'll do that tomorrow.