Michael Gambon

“I've had a private pilot's license for years and flown all round the U.K. and over to France.”

“I'm an anorak. I've always been an obsessive collector of things. Richard Briers collects stamps. I collect cars and guns, which are much more expensive, and much more difficult to store.”

“I want to be good all the time, so I feel anxious. But if you weren't like that, you'd be dead, wouldn't you? If you went out happy down the road, la la la. I've never been like that. I don't want to be.”

“Every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. No real character actor, of course, just me.”

“There's no subtext in 'Harry Potter,' really; it's all magic - anything can happen. Why do I say this? Because it's a magic spell. It's quite nice in a way. There is a real freedom to it. Doesn't say much for acting, does it?”

“I belong to quite a lot of learned societies. We collect firearms and discuss them at dinners and clubs and things.”

“I don't play classical guitar. But I do in my mind. I've got it on a stand.”

“I can't remember any of the films I've done. You go from one to another, and they all blend in to a big mass. You remember the costumes because you remember how you felt - that Western I did with Kevin Costner where I wore the big hat and the two guns, I remember that.”

“Yeah, I like causing trouble. It's the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff.”

“Television has dried up for my generation, so it's plays and films. You get used to being lazy doing films, but classical theatre's going to finish me off.”

“People should be shrouded in mystery. Especially actors. No, hang on, maybe actors should be blown up.”

“A child did approach me in a restaurant in Cornwall, but he thought I was Gandalf.”

“There were certainly no spells at my school. More like a smack in the mouth.”

“My only memories of school are of being beaten, of being hit in the playground, of masters poking their fingers in my chest all day.”

“Maybe that is why kids like Dumbledore: because he is funny rather than a miserable old sod with a long white beard.”

“I sometimes think the theatre is more demanding because it requires things you don't have in films, like it requires you to make the people in the front row believe you and not look an idiot to them while the people right at the back can hear you.”

“I learn the lines that JK Rowling or whoever writes them, and say them.”

“I like causing trouble. It's the teddy boy in me. I used to be a teddy boy. Feeling slightly inferior and wanting to cause a bit of bother and get some action going on in the room rather than get bored stiff. Does that make sense?”

“The theatre starts every night at half past seven, and I like the rhythm of going to the theatre, parking the car, going to the stage door; I've grown up with all of that. I'd love to do more theatre - I mean, I shouldn't be telling the world that I can't remember lines any more, but I find it more and more difficult, so I don't know.”

“I fell in love with Alan Ayckbourn the day I met him and, starting with 'The Norman Conquests,' went on to do eight plays with him. He tells you just what you want to know and has a brilliant way of solving problems.”