I know actors who have had to turn down good roles because they just don't pay enough. It's hard.

The one thing you can ask, I think, is that actors get paid a living wage. I would like it if all the repertory theatres that currently exist could do that. It would make a huge difference.

Who does understand life?

Gandalf's a good guy, and it's a good part. He says the right things, he believes the right things. An actor can have fun with it.

There's lots of Tolkien that must be confusing to people.

Even now, there are young actors who want careers as romantic leading men, and the best thing is not to reveal you're gay.

I remember Tom Stoppard saying to me when I came out, 'I feel so sorry for you, because you'll never have children.' These days I would say, 'Well, why not, Tom?'

You might be surprised by how interested young people are in older people.

People who are truly horrible are often the most interesting people in the room. You look at them and just say, 'Why?'

Will I miss Gandalf? Well, I don't miss him, because people are constantly coming up to me mentioning him and talking about him, so I don't feel that I've lost contact.

Every time you work is a challenge. There's a constant worry about it, and it's a side of acting I don't like.

In the U.K. there is still work to be done, particularly in schools, stopping the homophobic bullies in the playground and introducing unbiased discussion on gay issues in the classroom.

I just followed my parents' example and advice on living, which was to leave the world a better place than you found it. They were professional do-gooders, ministers of the church, social workers, teachers, and missionaries, that sort of thing.

Fame creeps up on you.

The first film role I deliberately chose to play after I came out was a raging heterosexual, John Profumo.

I don't normally take to Yorkshiremen.

It's easier to go from theatre to film than the other way round. In film you're absolutely loved and cossetted and cared for. In film your director makes your performance. In theatre you're carrying it all.

What's nice for me, having identified myself for years as being rather shy, is now, wherever I am, in public, there tends to be a friendly face who's pleased to see me, and I like that.

Actors don't, in fact, retire, do they? It took me a while to remember that.

If you are playing King Lear you are the centre of attention anyway. You don't need to draw attention to yourself. It's all laid out for you.

You see people in Hollywood trying to make blockbuster after blockbuster, but it's not possible. There's some god up there saying, 'You will fail now.' But I suppose that's true of us all.

I live for the text. It's my job.

It's my impression that I've done every job that I've been asked to do.

If I was a star, it would be difficult to go off and do 'Coronation Street.' So I guess I'm not a star.

I've always felt that 'X-Men' was about something serious. It wasn't just fantasy.

My friends are my family.

On the whole, actors shout when they don't know what they're doing, trying to make an impact.

Quakers are terrific.

Some relationships get easier as you get older, depending on what sort of person you are. I don't think I've got any better at them.

I like sleeping a lot.

Acting is a very big part of what human beings do. A dog is always a dog, but we're always changing.

To be with old friends is very warming and comforting.

Past success is no guarantee of future success, so I have learned to be an entrepreneur. I began to produce and direct my own projects.

You have to be careful of social climbers. There are a lot of potholes out there.

Leg day is my favorite day. You can't have a thorough leg workout without feeling completely spent. It's a challenge, but the benefits of maintain muscle mass on my legs is important because, as the biggest muscle group in the body, it also helps me keep the proper body composition in terms of fat to muscle ratio.

My most famous commercial was for Fruit Of the Loom underwear. I took a lot of razzing from my classmates.

David Hasselhoff is awesome.

The weirdest request I got was for a picture of me naked with nothing on but my cowboy boots. Needless to say, she went home empty-handed. I have, however, on several occasions, strolled around my apartment in nothing but my cowboy boots. There was just no one there to take pictures.

I began modeling in N.Y. and doing commercials. That led to regional theatre and then Broadway and then movies.

I've managed to catch lightning in a bottle a couple times. I'm very lucky. But I want to do this forever. I enjoy it so much. One of the challenges as an actor is to stay relevant.

Some of my earliest memories are dancing in the kitchen, standing on my mom's toes.

I think this show can have legs for a long time. That's why it's called 'Beverly Hills 90210' instead of something like 'West Beverly High.'

I believe the digital world presents tremendous opportunities for the producers who understand it, and I am launching a digital production company, iMan Productions, to take advantage of this opportunity.

In this business, it's important: if you consider yourself a journeyman actor like I do, you need to stay topical. So I'm always looking for projects that are challenging, that put me in a light that's different from anything I've ever done before.

People spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make movies that don't do anything. I mean, no one's talking about 'Pacific Rim' today. No one's talking about 'The Lone Ranger,' and those were $100 million movies that didn't have nearly the impact that 'Sharknado' did.

Ideally, it would be five days a week, spending at least an hour at the gym doing cardio three of those days and resistance training all of those days. My cardio is typically interval training.

As an actor, you know that every act has a closing curtain.

I can't tell you the deluge of images that were sent to me through all the different social media platforms of families partying together... enjoying 'Sharknado.'

When I met my wife, I was forty-six, and it was love at first sight. Every day, my love grew deeper as I found out about her family values, that her parents were still together, that she wanted kids. So we fell in love, got engaged, got married, and a month later, we were pregnant!

When I was a kid, it was always very embarrassing for me if I wet the bed - I was 5 years old. I didn't want my parents or my brothers to find out because they'd bust my chops to no end.