"Working at the BBC," "I think I started in the late '60s, mid-'60s, as long ago as that." "Romeo And Juliet - when they used to do big plays." "They don't do them any more." "I did Romeo And Juliet with Hywel Bennett." "We used to go up on the third floor at Television Centre, all us actors, with our photograph, and go round the directors' rooms in the lunch break, when no-one noticed, and shove our pictures under the door, and with my picture, on the back it said," ""Michael Gambon", how tall you were, whether you could ride a horse, all those things, and you'd go round shoving the pictures under the doors." "And I was constantly working there." "I don't know how I got the audition, but I was presented to him in this big rehearsal room in Aquinas Street." "And he said, "What are you going to do for me?"" "And I didn't know who he was" " I mean, it's hard to believe, but I didn't know." "And I was right close to him - he was sitting at a trestle table, and I was towering over him." "I said, "Richard III."" "And he said, "Yes, which part?" I said, "Richard III."" "He said, "No, but which part?" "Is it Catesby, Buckingham?"" "I said, "No, Richard III." He said, "What, the title role?"" "I said, "Yes." He said, "You've got a bit of a nerve, haven't you?"" "I didn't know what he meant." "I said, "No, no, I've chosen..." He said, "Right." ""Start doing it." So I started doing it." "I immediately went like that." "I said, "Was ever woman in this?"" ""No, no!" he said." ""You can't do that now, on top of me."" "He said, "Go to the back of the hall." ""Go up to the end of the hall so I see you full-length, and then do the Richard III," ""when I can see you, and see if I can hear you."" "So I started walking up this long rehearsal room." "It had columns in it." "And, um..." "I got to the very far end, my heart pounding." "I got to the end column, right away from him, and as I got there, I suddenly had a brainwave." "I thought, "I'll swing round the column, like that - boof!" " come back round," ""and start this speech, with a hump and everything."" "So I dived at a column, spun round it, came round the other side and said," ""Was ever woman?" And a nail in the column - a wooden column - had gone right through my finger, it had blood pouring out, and I didn't take any notice - I said, "Was ever woman?"" "And he said, "No, no, stop!" "Something terrible!" "Stop!"" "I said, "What?" He said, "There's blood pouring out." I said, "It's all right."" ""No, no!" he said. "Quick!" And he came down with a handkerchief, wrapped it round my hand, and he said, "Are you all right?"" "I said, "Yes, I'll carry on." He said, "No, no, you're badly injured."" "He said, "You go away now, and we'll see you later."" "So I went away." "The next morning, I got a telephone call, offering me a job." "So he must have just thought I was a clown, really." "We just stood there every night like that, with a spear, like that, with a steel helmet on and a breastplate." "Could have been anyone." "And we'd just stand like that." "God, it was..." "For half an hour, hour." "And then after about half an hour you'd go like that, turn, walk off." "Stand in the wings, come back on again." "And we used to have radios in our breastplates" "A little wire up there, underneath the helmet, and listen to the radio while the show was going on." "So I did that, and then I did all sorts of walk-on parts like that." "And then, finally, I went..." "I booked an appointment to see him, in his office, and he said, "What do you want?"" "I said, "I've come to ask you if you'd give me better parts."" "He was a joker - he was a very funny man." "He said, "Better parts?" "!" "Whose parts do you want?"" "I said, "No, I don't want anyone's parts."" "He said, "You want me to take parts away from famous actors and give them to you?"" "I said, "No!" "I just wondered if it were possible for me to play better parts."" "He said, "I don't know, Michael, I don't know." "I'll tell you what..."" "And he made a phone call to Birmingham Rep and he got me in there for a year, so he gave me better parts " "I went to Birmingham Rep and played lots of parts for a year." "I played Othello - I played Othello myself, having just been in his one at the National Theatre." "I literally copied him - all the moves he did that were enthralling and brilliant." "Things with his hands, like that, he would do" " I copied them all." "That was my first break into television." "It was the first ever BBC2 colour adventure series, set in the..." "I forget what century it would be - 17th century?" "And I was the oldest member, the son of a family who lived in a castle in Stirling, somewhere near Stirling - above the Trossachs, you know." "And I spent two years doing it - riding a white horse across the Lowlands, fighting in the Reivers, battles - it was a great part." "The Singing Detective was 1985," "BBC again, so I owe everything to the BBC." "And Jon Amiel, the director, met me for lunch in a restaurant in Kensington and gave me these six scripts." "And it was overwhelming." "I, er..." "I gave them to all my friends to read " ""What do you think of that?" They all said it was a great work of art, complicated." "So in we went" " I jumped into the water, and it was terrific." "I spent seven months like in a dark tunnel, and Dennis Potter used to say, "You never speak to me much."" "I said, "No, I don't know what to say." "I'm always in awe of you." ""You're an intellectual man and I'm just a dummy actor." ""I never know what to say to you."" "He said, "Well, what interests you in life?" I said, "Well, I quite like cars."" "So he said..." "Every time he met me after that, he'd say, "What do you think of the new Ford Anglia?"" "So he treated me like a kid." "But he was at the read-throughs." "He used to come in to the filming in the hospital." "We shot the scenes in Tottenham." "But he used to turn up when Joanne Whalley was on the set." "I don't blame him!" "He would always be there when she was called." "So we had a read-through, and I watched him very carefully - his buckled hands." "So I copied him exactly." "I used to tell journalists it took two hours to put the make-up on." "It took about 20 minutes, actually." "But the make-up girls got extra dosh." "And when I did full naked scenes, and... totally stripped off, we'd have five make-up girls doing that." "And we'd book in at 5 o'clock in the morning." "We'd get extra dosh for that, and we'd turn up about 7." "But the first day we tried the full make-up, they put it on at 5." "I had 5 girls doing me naked - imagine what that was like!" "Horrific!" "And so, er... we started at 5 and they made me up, and at half past 5 I was finished." "So I showered it off and we all went down the fry-up caff, with five make-up girls, and had breakfast." "So we used to cheat from then on." "I had on my best pyjamas - the ones with red stripes and blue forget-me-nots." "I was all dressed up and talcumed under the armpits." "A million dollars was about to call." "I was ready for it..." "After that at the BBC, I did loads of things" " Ghosts was one thing I did." "I think I played Pastor Manders." "Judi Dench, Ken Branagh." "But terrible things happened - corpsing." "I'm a terrible corpser and so is Judi - she never stops corpsing." "She's worse than I am." "I remember we had to do an opening sequence of Ghosts in a dark room, at a big dining table, all sitting round the table, and we said to the director, "Can we speak while this?"" "He said, "Yes, just mumble to each other."" "So Richardson was the maid who brought the tray round with the potatoes." "And I could feel the table shaking even before she came on." "You know that feeling, when you're on the verge of going?" "And, um, a very powerful thing." "Well, she came on with the potatoes." "They were massive potatoes, that big." "There must have been about 20 of them, a big tray." "And she came to me first, and she said, "Pastor Manders..." - she had to whisper - "Pastor Manders, would you like some potatoes?"" "I said, "Yes, please, my child." "I'll have eight." Eight potatoes!" "It would have covered..." "Well, you can imagine." "I could hear Judi going, Ken Branagh - it turned into a..." "The director stopped and he said, "Go on, you get out of the studio."" "He was furious." "So we all went out to pull ourselves together." "He said, "If you do this again, I'm throwing you out."" "I've always been bad." "I can't keep a straight face." "Of course I don't deny there may be a lot that is attractive about these writings." "And I cannot exactly blame you for wishing to keep informed of intellectual movements from the great world outside, about which one hears so much." "After all, you have allowed your son to wander there for a number of years." " But..." " But?" "But one does not have to talk about it, Mrs Alving." "Wives And Daughters" " I loved that." "It was a part that I really felt I could play." "It fitted me on all levels - it's very rare, that." "I did that with Tom Hollander." "I loved that." "Don't you cast up your mother's wishes to me, sir." "You who came so near to breaking her heart." "What do you do now?" "You come and go as you please without a word of explanation as to where you go, or how you spend my money." "What is it you do?" "Is it gambling, sir, or do you keep a mistress?" "Cranford " "I played Judi Dench's..." "the man who she loves." "And that was a bit difficult, cos I can't really look at Judi without bursting out laughing." "And I..." "I had to be very serious in that, cos I'm a farmer, and I fall in love with her." "And there's some nice love scenes when I look at her and explain." "I enjoyed playing those." "But I only had a couple of weeks on that." "I hope the dumplings haven't blunted your appetites too much." "My housekeeper doesn't like to serve them." "When my father was alive, we always started with dumplings." "We didn't get any meat till we'd done justice to the first course." "I think it is a very proper way of doing things." "Dinners have gone all topsy-turvy nowadays." "I'm a working actor." "And I've got to earn a living, and I go through..." "Not that I'm knocking period drama." "And I get different parts." "I've just been in Albuquerque, making a film with Denzel Washington, playing someone when the world has finished - the world has ended, there's nothing left." "I've been doing that." "Then I fly back to London and do this one, so I'm literally lucky enough to go from job to job." "When I say, "Why do I do things?" I never really know." "That's my work." "But I'm very lucky that I go from these very posh plays er, to very posh BBC television!" "And then I do quite posh films, if I'm lucky, in America." "I am quite posh, really!" "I speak quite posh... when I'm being interviewed on the television!" "Not down there when I'm having a fag round the back!" "(LAUGHING)" "A family?" "!" "Surely not!" "Surely you would not deny her that." "She has looked after us so well and for so long." "Mothers die, and that is a fact." "Miss Taylor is not young." "Oh, dear!" "You should not make matches or predictions." "Unfortunately, they all come true."