I was horrified when Richard Chamberlain and Rupert Everett said gay actors should stay in the closet. They were saying to people that they should live a lie and not be liberated, to live in fear of being found out.
My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.
Some things are just really difficult to do. That's what I find hard. I usually can find a way to do a character to make it real and work. But sometimes it's a struggle sustaining that, because there's such a level of personal involvement and personal, physical, and emotional distraughtness.
If the president of the country is not actually saying something, allowing equality to happen, how could you expect to counsel kids not to bully other kids? If they're not seeing that their society sees gay people as equals, how could you tell them what they're doing is wrong? With all this stuff going on, with the "Don't ask, don't tell" and things like that, we are second-class citizens, definitely. It just seems to me that it's hypocritical for us as a culture to say, "Bullying is a terrible thing," when really, they are just reflecting what the society is doing.
I've actually found - especially doing my cabaret show - I'm connecting with people in a way I haven't connected with them. I've found that when you're open and honest, people respond to that, whatever you're being open and honest about. You could then, when you lay that as the groundwork, say, "Here I am. This is what I think. I come in peace." Then you're able to push out, to be able to talk about more things. And that's been a really heartening thing about my life, actually.
When you're on TV, you come into people's homes. In theater and film, they go to you - to the temple of the cinema or theater. And it's very different.
You do get really exhausted doing films. You work such long hours, and after a while, things can get out of perspective, just like if anyone's tired, things get on top of them.
The thing with film and theater is that you always know the story so you can play certain cues in each scene with the knowledge that you know where the story's going to end and how it's going to go. But on television nobody knows what's going to happen, even the writers.
I think directing in a team is a really good idea because it stops the cult of the director as God straight away, and also you're discussing things on set so it opens it out to everyone and it becomes a totally collaborative thing. And you have someone who supports you when you're feeling a bit insecure.
I come more to Scotland than I ever used to, so I feel more connected to it, more part of the zeitgeist. You know when you realize you have a choice and I'm choosing my homeland. It's funny: when you get older these things creep up to you.