 Felly, wrth gwrs, wrth gwrs, yn fwy o'r parlydydd. Felly, wrth gwrs, mae'n gwybod i'r ffordd o'r ffestol yng nghymru, ddyn ni'n gwneud hynny, y grithgau a'r director Brian Cox. Brian was born in Dundee, a, sy'n gwneud i ddechrau i dynni, rydyn ni'n gyrhau i dynni Rheb. Rydyn ni'n ddynni, y positu mor hyn a rhoi i'r gynhwys sefyll yn яngu 2013. Brian is a supporter of the Charity Age UK, ac mae'n gyntaf ffordd a gennymiaeth i gychwyn i ddiabod i ffond i gymrysiau diabodol i ddiabodol i Ffosil Almighty at the University of Dundee. Eisman Brian's many interests is the work of the Hungarian photojournalist, Michael Peto, Fe bydd hyn yn gallu bwyr o'r ddwylliannol i gyfnodg стrubol yw i fynd i fynd i'r parlymytiad yng Nghymru. Fy hoffi'r ysgrifennid â'u gwneud â'r wyfion gan ddechrau gwirionedd diolch yn Llyfrgell, ac rhai yn ymddangos i gyllidio gyfer y pethai a'r gweld arweinydd yng Nghymru. Fy hoffi efo gallwch ar gwrsgwysbeth yng nghymru, ac rhai'r cyfnodd hyngwyl yn cael ei gwaith o'r a dwych erbyn hyn a dweud hynny yw fel y gyfgrifffen sydd yn dweud o gycheg. Rhyw gweithio i chi i'w ddwyngen nhw, i ffordd o myliad arlau gyllid y MBY ym ysgriffffawr, nid ym 1915, a dod o hyn wedi'u i atiwn i gweld. Rhaid i'r fawr? Ie, rhaid i'r fawr. Rhaid i'r fawr? Rhaid i. Rwyf戰 oeddwn ni'n adnfodio gan hyn o'r adnfodio, cafod ni'n gwybod i adnfodio'r adnfodio, ond rwy'n adnfodio'n adnfodio'n adnfodio, gan gweithio cyfan dryf yn y dyrewnan? Mya, y ffordd o ff Glo ir intern, rwyf wedi g停f y wneud yn gweithio i amddag nhw ymddangosu, Mae'r ddaf yw'r ddod yma'r 13 oed yn ymweld. Mae'r ddod yn 48 oed yn ymweld a'r ddod yn 1904. Mae'r ddod yn 1856, ac mae'r ddod yn ymweld yn ymweld yn 1904. Mae'r gael ei was gan y dyfodol am 15ol oes oes. Mae'r ddod yn of yn ymweld yn ymweld, ac mae'r ddod yn ymweld yn ymweld. Mae'r ddod yn ymweld yn ymweld yn ymweld,λwyddaf am y dyfodaethau a chyideo hon. Mae'r ddod yn ymweld yn ymweld yn ymweld. Dwi'n edrych i chi i chi but yn ei ffordd mawr a cherdd yn ymweld, ac gan three were prisoners of war. She got a huge pension. With that pension she bought a little shop where she ran for about ten years. And eventually, my father was a bachelor, that was his job in the Mill, and the Hillbank Mill in Dundee. She got him a shop and she put him into the shop, and he became a shopkeeper. Which he was up to the point where he'd been cwmol yn y gwain sydd y ti wedi, a hyn yn ei wneud yn y gallu gwahodd inni gynnyddiad. Dechrau allan, mae hi'n mynd i'n ganddoli, mae hi'n disfwyr, mae hi i'n ganddoli, mae hi i'n ganddoli 의as, mae hi i'n ganddoli, mae hi i fi ddechrau i chi'n gweinio i chi'n ganddoli i gdael bob penikender, mae hi'n ganddoli i chi i gyd yn llogio i chi'n ganddoli i chi, a wnaeth gwelsoeddiadau i chi, ac mae erbyn yn g薙l iawn i gael yr prosiectau. Dw i ddim yn dyma, dyma yma. Nid yw'r amser. Yn y gwaith cyfaint a'r ceddo, a mae'r ddaeth gynghoriad, mae erion i'r llwyddo, a rwy'n gallu, ddim yn dda'r hyn olygu. Mae'n rhaid i'r llzz ynglynig a substitute fyddol iawn iddo. Ac rydyn i'n ryw gael, dyddwn yn olygu'r bron i'r yma, rydyn i'r bron i'r ol siadod, ond yn iddyn nhw hefyd oeddi, ac mae'n rhan oed yn i amlwg sydd ar gyfer drwng, ac mae'n rhan oeddi oedd yn unig, ac mae'n ddwych yn cyffredinol ar y fwrdd, ac mae'r rhan oeddi oeddi'r rhan oeddi'r mwyaf. A mae'r rhan oeddi'r llun ymddangos yn yma drwng yn ymddangos, a mae'n bryd o'r hyn o'r sysgau yn yn iawn, mae yna ond yn i'n ddwy'r rhan oeddi, ac mae'n rhan oeddi'r unrhan o'r rhan oeddi'r rhan oeddi'r rhan oeddi. a dyna dyn nhw'n mynd i'w ddechrau'r wrth fy nghyrch o'r ymgyrch yn y rwyf. Felly ydych chi ddweud y cyfnod i'w ddweud, ond dyna dyn nhw'n mynd i'w ddweud y cerdig o'r yrwyr gyforddol o'r ddweud o'r cyfnod i ddweud. Ond ydych chi'n defnyddio'r ysgol i'r ddweud, ac yma'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud, Cwrs, the headmaster always used to send me for messages, because I had a gift of the gab, so he would say, he would come into the class and he would say, cocks, and I would say, yes, he said, can you go down to Lars and get me a stylus 12L79? And I said, yes, sir. And I would go off and now, I mean, I was only about 10 when I did that. And but that was, and that was me, that kind of life where I used to just go off and do his messages. But I wasn't doing any learning. And I certainly, you know, so I failed my 11 plus. I went to secondary school, Michael's secondary school, and I knew, I always knew that I wanted to be a performer, an actor, that was my kind of MV, modus vivandum. And through a series of circumstances, I had a couple of very good teachers who kind of knew I was like a fisher of water. And I kind of regret it now that I didn't actually really get into the sort of physical activity like carpentry and stuff that I could have actually benefited from now. But at that time, that was not my interest. And I managed to get, it was a chat boy who had been at my school and this teacher knew that he was working in the Dundee Rep and he knew he was leaving the Rep. He was going from the Rep to go to drama school. And this job, which was basically a general fact totem, I used to take the money to the bank in the morning and I'd go for, I was the assistant, I was the secretary's assistant. And then I went for messages again in the afternoon, which was what seemed to be used to doing. And then in the evening, I mopped the stage before the show. That was my job. And it was a, I mean, I got the job. And the first day I arrived in the theatre to go up for the interview, I, it was the old theatre, which used to be just Bell Street in Nicolls Street. It's actually still there. In fact, it's still in its state it was 50 years ago. They've never done anything about it because there was a fire that burnt down on my birthday, my 17th birthday in 1963, the theatre burnt down. But when my first day there, going for my interview, I walked in the front, you know, the box office and she said, no son, you've got to go round the back. So I came round the back. As I went up the stairs, it was a close, and there was various wardrobes and green rooms and dressing rooms off it. There was a fight on the stairs and it was an actor called Nicoll Williamson. And he was none too, the worst for a way. And it was 10 o'clock in the morning and they were knocking hell out of one another. And I just thought, this is the theatre, have arrived. And then a guy at the top of the stairs said, are you all right, darling? He called me darling and I thought, God, this is strange, this is weird. So I said, yeah, I'm lost, I'm trying to get to the office and he guided me through. And that was it, I mean, I got the job and I worked until I was 17, I worked from the age, I literally started, well I started scene shifting just before my 15th birthday and I used to go in and do the school and then I'd go down, I'd do the register and then I'd go down and work. And then I, from there on, I went to drama school and I met the most, the best people who sort of took care of me because I was this kid with this accent that you could cut with a knife, you know, I could, you know, I mean, yeah, I thought I had to have kids. Yeah, pears, pheffins for a pear, you know, it was all the whole dundee bit. So anyway, I was very blessed, I was very lucky and that I had these people who were quite fond of me and I was sort of a bit of a mascot to the theatre because I was this anomaly, this local kid who they couldn't even understand, you know, except they would give me little parts on stage and my accent would fall away and I played, ironically, I used to play a lot of American, like two line parts in these various plays that they did. And I started there and then I went to drama school and my first job after leaving drama school was exactly almost to the day 50 years ago at the Royal IC in Edinburgh. And I arrived here, it was the festival, it was the last two weeks of the festival and we started rehearsing, it was 1965 and we started rehearsing the Seven of Tuamestos and the director was Tom Fleming, who was a wonderful, wonderful man, great man. And it was Russell Hunter, Una McLean, Callum Mill, Tom Conte, one of his first jobs. And I stayed here for a year and that was the greatest year. My auntie, I mean, I'm used to Edinburgh because my auntie lived here, my auntie Jean, she ran away to Edinburgh when she was a wee lassie. She was a good, she became an elder of the Kirk but she was somebody who used to go, she was a Catholic and she used to go to church every day so she made that move, she did it but she did it. And she used to, she lived in Boswell Park so I used to spend time with her, my mum used to come through for holidays so I knew Edinburgh since I was about two. So it was a great place to come in and it still excites me coming back here. I always, I love this city. You've talked about your accent, you've talked about D, I mean I think it's very clear you come from a very working class background and you know, there's a present controversy within the acting circles that perhaps too many of the newer younger actors all come from public school backgrounds and you know, is there the same opportunities for working class kids like you for example to make your mark in the theatre? I mean the truth of the matter is that somebody like me from my background couldn't possibly start, couldn't really get the access that I got. I mean that was what was so, I mean the 60s was, I mean it was the 60s, it was this. I mean the 60s was probably our greatest time of social mobility and it was one of the things that was very clear, you know, especially after the war when we had the great athlete government and we had all the kind of reforms like the national health service, the nationalisation of industries, all the kind of great things that happened, you know, at that time and athlete who I think now turns out to be probably the greatest prime minister of the 20th century and he's very quiet way. And it led to a time of tremendous, especially in the theatre with Look Back and Anger in 1956 and all the kind of work that was beginning to explore the extremes of the British class system and particularly the free cinema of people like Lindsay Anderson, John Slesinger, Saturday night and Sunday morning, a kind of loving, all the silicone, David Story books, Sporting Life. That created a sort of ambience of actors. So there were actors like Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, Albert Finney, Alan Bates, Tom Courtney. Now that was the generation previous to me. So that was a generation that when I went to the Plaza Cinema, I think in, you know, 1962 and I saw Albert Finney play in Saturday night and Sunday morning, what seemed so distant is the idea of becoming an actor. Even though I was determined, it did still seem very distant. It suddenly was possible because there was a working class actor behaving in a way and dealing with working class subjects. And that led to, in London, it focused around the Royal Court Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre was a fantastic, it was a writers theatre, but it was a theatre which was looking at British life in a way that had not been examined ever, ever in drama towns. John Osborne, of course, was the first great guide, the great writing, looked back in anger, which was the thing that broke the mould into how all these plays and all these writers came to the fore like John Arden, like Arnold Wesker, like David Storey, like Edward Bond. And it created a whole flow of people coming into the theatre. Now when I went to drama school, I went to drama school in London because, as I say, my accent was very strong. And I was an East Coaster. I mean, London was as, Glasgow was as alien to me as London, and people, you were talking about that earlier on, about distances. Where people, you know, where places were, it just seemed kind of like, Glasgow just seemed like the end of the world, as far as I was concerned. And London was at the other end of the world, and I chose London because I really wanted to learn how to speak, and I didn't think I would quite learn how to speak in Glasgow. And I still can't do a Western Scotland accent to save myself. Anyway, so I thought, okay, so I went to drama school in London, and it was, again, it was at the 60s, it was a great period. But the point is, I was paid for. You know, there was no, I wasn't a hostage, or my mother wasn't a hostage, she was a widow. So I had my fees paid and my expenses. And I actually lived not too badly. And it was accepted. That if children reach a certain stage and they achieve something, the country was such that the government said, we will pay for that child. And now all children now are hostages, or their parents are, are hostages to the fortune of their education, which I think is iniquitous. I just think it's appalling. And to see that and say, where have we got to? And of course that has created the haves and haves knots. And we've created a situation where in my world, in the theatre world, the reason I've got nothing against the Eddie Redman's or the Benedict Cumberbatchers, I mean, I think they're great kids, I think they're great actors, they really do the job well, and they've got training. But the theatres within their establishment are so state of the art. I mean, the theatre eaten is, it's, you know, the drama course is run by an XRAC actor who's now failed as an actor and got a job as a teacher and has done very well. And you know, that's, you know, if you can't do it, teach it, you know. And he's, they've done a great job and developed these careers. Same at Harrow where Benedict Cumberbatch went. So you can knock in one sense, but you have to be very careful about it. My brief is there's no opportunity for people below a certain strata, you know, below a certain wage bracket. And I find that iniquitous. I find that it's hard for a young person. I mean, I, for years, especially, and this has been going on for a long time, for years I used to give grants to drama students. You know, there's a couple of drama schools that drama students I've paid for to go through drama school. Because their mums could, I mean, some of them are single mothers, can't afford it for their kids. And they fall through all the, they fall through all the gaps for funding. And I think it's just become impossible. And of course it affects the culture because we begin to see something where there's a whole area that isn't actually explored in a way. I mean, luckily enough, we have a lot of people fighting it and a lot of people are sort of determined to do it. And there's a lot of amazing institutions that are coming up. Charlotte Comer, the actress Charlotte Comer, has started a school deliberately for kids who can't afford it, you know, looking at way. And it's all grant funded, you know. But we should be doing it. We should be taking care of them. We, you know, that's why, that's what's so wonderful about here with the education system here, the fact that Scottish students get free education in the university. And I believe in drama education. I think it's the best kind of education for everybody because it's not just drama education is not just about drama, it's about life. You're learning how you deal with yourself, you learn how to speak, you learn how to communicate, you learn how to deal with your body, you learn how to breathe, you learn... I mean, things that we don't learn how to do. So it's good from a health point of view. It's good from an imagination point of view. It's also good from an immensely practical point of view. I, years and years ago, I had a... ..and it's a very difficult thing because following your bliss isn't something that's awfully encouraged, you know, nowadays. We tend to say to kids, you know, come on, get up. I mean, it's, you know, when I went to see the Youth Employment Officer in Dundee, he said, come on, son, be serious, you know. Get a proper job, you know, you know. What are you thinking of being an actor? Come on, it's not gonna work. If you could only see me now. You know, but I mean... That very improper job has lasted for a long, long time. Exactly, and it's possible. This is what I mean. I mean, of course, I'm fairly tenacious, but it's possible if the conditions are right. Not just for me, but for lots of children, for lots of would-be careers. And I remember years and years ago that there was a... Because I've taught a lot at drama school. And I remember that there was a young guy who was an actor who was about to go to Stamford University. He came from a very, very Brahman legal family in Chicago. And the family wanted him to be a lawyer. He was determined that he'd be the lawyer. And a Jewish family. And he came on a summer course to the British American Drama Academy. And he was not a great actor. But he was a really interesting guy, and quite a bright guy. And he decided he wanted to go to drama school. And he said, I wanted audition for drama school. And I said to him, I said, Michael, I said, you should think about this. He said, no, I want to do it. I want to audition for him. So I arranged an audition for him. And blow me, he got in. I didn't expect him to get in. He got in. So he decided he wasn't going to go to law school at Stamford. He was going to go to drama school. His parents were none too pleased on the stand to play. So I had a meeting with them. And I'm talking, this is nearly 30 years ago now. I had a meeting with his parents. And I said, they said, we're worried about Michael. And I said, well, yes, you've every right to be worried about Michael. I said, but you know, you've really got to think about this. I said, he's following his bless. He's following what he wants to do. I said, if you stop him, and if you say you're not going to do that, you're going to go, you're going to cover your options, you're going to get out of it. And it all fails for him. When he's 40 or 45, you're going to have a lot on your conscience because you're going to say, I stopped this boy from doing it. And that's going to lead to such bitterness and unhappiness for you alone. I said, if you allow him to do what he wants to do, all bets are off. He can't turn around and said, my parents stopped me. My parents wouldn't let me do it. My parents, that was why I didn't do it. I said, he's responsible. And we have to realise that children should be allowed to be responsible for their lives in a way that we sometimes take that away from them. He sometimes undermined that responsibility. So they accepted that. They weren't too happy about it, but they accepted it. He went to drama school. He acted for a bit. He didn't work out. He did a couple of businesses. Two years ago, I got a telephone call. And it was Michael who I hadn't heard of for about 10 years. And I said, Michael, how are you? And he said, I'm great. He said, can we meet? And this was in Brooklyn where I live. And I said, sure. And I hadn't, literally I hadn't seen him for about 20 odd years. And I walked in and there he was and he was with his little girl. And I said, so what's happened? He said, my life is great. He said, I just want to thank you. I said, so what are you doing? He said, well, you know, he said, what has happened now for me? He said, I am now a cantor in a synagogue. He said, I sing weekly in the synagogue. And I went, really? He said, yeah. He said, it's the best life ever. He said, in all my performance skills, he said, just come to this in the pursuits of my faith. And I just thought, well, you can't do better than that. And that's the deal. That's the risk. It's a risk and it's a deal at the same time. You were one of the founding members of the Lyceum company. And it celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. And I know you're going back to be with Bill Patterson and waiting for Godot. Looking back on these early days of the Lyceum to where we are now, I mean, have you got any thoughts about it at all? Well, I just think that the theatre in Scotland, I think I'm very proud of Scotland particularly because we've set an example to worldwide, we've set an example. The way we created our national theatre, the way we didn't do it in one event, we opened it in different events everywhere, the stuff that we've done like Black Watch, which has travelled the world, and to walk into the theatre in Brooklyn and see Black Watch and say, these are my people. I mean, it's just, it fills you up. And I think our theatre is second to none. I mean, more people go to the theatre in Scotland per capita than in the rest of the UK. And we've always been good at our theatre in Scotland. And the Lyceum was, you know, the Lyceum was a really interesting place. That first year, I mean, it was very ambitious. It was probably too ambitious. And I feel, I've always felt very sorry for Tom Fleming because he believed that Edinburgh was a city that deserved an international feeling every day of the year. It's a city that was designed for festivals. That's what it was designed for. And that's why he created and he did an international repertoire. Unfortunately, there was a lot of problems with city fathers and what have you, and it didn't, it didn't work. But he kept going on and he started the Scottish Actors Theatre, which of course eventually came to what we've got as a Scottish National Theatre. So it really came from Tom Fleming. It came from the three estates which was performed before that at the assembly rooms by Tony Guthrie and David Lindsay's great epic poem play. So our contribution to the theatre is second to none. And it's great to see it and the Conservatoire in Glasgow. I want to see, I mean, I was sad to see the demise of the Queen Margaret School. I want to see an Edinburgh School because we should have a school in Edinburgh which is equal to what's going on in Glasgow. And we're, you know, we're still, you know, and we're still developing the arts, our painting arts, a second to nine. We, especially our education, Duncan of Jordan's and the Glasgow art school, I mean, they're tremendous places. But it's moved forward. But at the same time, it's all very well us moving forward. But the people have to be allowed the access. It's this thing of not allowing the people access. And this is what has happened, is that, you know, we live in a digital age, but we're still very far from things. Even though we can get things very quickly, we can't sometimes get the most fundamental things quickly at all. And that's something that I, you know, worries me greatly. And it worries me because I think it's, I think there's a lot of things, you know, which is why politically I've sort of got more involved than I ever intended to do. I never intended to get involved politically at all. But I see a lot of old-fashioned feudalism at work that sort of hides itself or hierarchies that decide on what it's supposed to be, whether it be Oxbridge or whether it be the kind of, the hierarchy of the Labour Party, for example, which has created a few problems, as we've seen quite recently. So, I mean, these hierarchies, they forget about where they're coming from. They forget about what their roots are. And you can't forget about the roots. You've constantly got to look to that thing from where you grow. Because it's from where you grow, you grow even more. You forget about that, and that begins to die, the rest festas. OK, can I, I mean, you've had a long, long career both on stage and in film. Can I ask you, do you have a preference for one or the other? I mean, it seems to me, and I was looking through your resume, that you are a guy that's just never stopped working. I, yes, I don't stop. I'm a workaholic. I mean, I have to confess. I love my work. I mean, that's the thing, you know, when you love your work, you want to do your work. And I love it. I mean, I'm very lucky. I'm very blessed. But at the same time, as my mother was to say, I've knocked my pan in, you know. I've actually, you know, I've done the work in order to do the work. And I think that's what you have to do. I mean, you have to give to get it, you know. You can't just assume, you know. You can't assume anything. And I've been very lucky. I mean, I have been very lucky. I don't deny that. But, for instance, the film thing, when I was a wee boy, of course I used to go to the pictures all the time. I mean, that was my babysitter. You know, my parents were old and my mother was ill. She was ill before my father died. She was ill when I was a baby. And then my father died. So, but I spent a lot of time, you know, conning aunties to get one and three to go to the royal or the Broadway. And in Dundee, we have something like 21 cinemas at one time. Did you know if to take the juice balls? Pardon? Did you know getting for the juice balls? No, oh, we didn't, we didn't know. That was a little bit before me. The, you mean... Come on, I'm not older than you. I remember that. But you're from Fife. Maybe it was a Fife thing. Maybe it was a Fife thing. No, we used to have it. There used to be a cinema called The Peak and used to take the lemonade bottles or the, or I actually used to do jam jars and you would get them for your jam jars. But that kind of stopped in Dundee around about probably in the late 40s. Must be really backward from Fife because I remember it and I was born in the late 40s. No, but no, but no, my sisters used to tell me about that because that was, that was true. But we, so I went, I spent a lot of time in the cinema. So the cinema was how I first became interested, really interested apart from the performing thing, enacting and I thought that's what I want to do and I always wanted to be a cinema actor. But the interesting thing about here, and I could go on to long dissertations about the difference between cinema and theatre, but essentially the cinema is very much the product of an egalitarian culture. That's why we don't, you know, when people talk about the film industry, we don't have a film industry. We do television, but we don't have a film industry. Not like the States, they have a film industry and they've always had a film industry and it has been an industry. And it's fact that comes from something, you know, which is, you know, when you look at American films, they're not going on about class or going about all the things that we preoccupy ourselves that they go to the root of something much more. That's why American, you know, Westerns, you know, were like, you know, John Ford was my favourite, you know, film to go to for Westerns. I mean, the searchers, John Wayne and the searchers and those kind of mythic, kind of epic films were the things that I responded to. I never responded to things which were apart from, as I said later on when I saw Saturday night and Sunday morning the sport in life, but I never referred to the old kind of forelock tugging films which used to happen a lot, you know. I remember Lindsay Anderson years ago, he did a thing at the Edinburgh Festival and he opened it by showing, he said, in America you had a girl from the Midwest and a Jewish immigrant, son of Jewish immigrants from Austria and you had Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. He said, that was possible. Here we had Jack Halbert and Ceasley Cornwich, you know. So you had a kind of extreme, you know, of what was possible in terms of cinema and our cinema has only sort of recently caught up with itself, but the theatre has always been there and it's kind of, and again, it's very feudal. It's a part of a feudal culture. We create the theatre, Shakespeare, you know, and you can't get around Shakespeare. And so for me, I was more interested in the cinema, but when I started to train, I then discovered about the beauty of the theatre. So I got into the theatre and I did the classical theatre. But I always had this thing hovering over me that I want to do movies. And in 1990, well, I was nearly 50, I decided having done some movies, I decided I was going to move to Hollywood. And it happened because of circumstance. It didn't happen because I didn't go on, well, that's not true, I did go and sit by a pool, but that was very, but that wasn't the thing. I mean, I sat by a pool and then I came home and then all these jobs started to get offered to me and then I decided, well, I'm going to do movies for a bit. I'm going to ask you about your favourite film, but before I do, can I just say that to me you were Hannibal Lecter? Oh, thank you. I thought you were... I don't know if that's a compliment mind you. No, you were the original Hannibal Lecter. And I found you really quite scary and awful. Were you disappointed that you weren't offered Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs? Only in the sense of the money. Right, okay. That was, I think, the really disappointing to me. I mean, I didn't mind... No, I mean, what happened was that it was a very interesting thing. By the way, my influence of Peter Hammett, I had two influences for Hannibal Lecter. One was my son, but I didn't realise it because the director said, do you know any public school boys? And I said, no, I don't. And then I realised my son was at St Paul's, so I did know one public school boy. And the other one was Peter Emmanuel, the killer Peter Emmanuel, who I grew up with as a wee boy. And I became obsessed with Peter Emmanuel because of this guy that was on the loose and the stuff that he did around Scotland. And he was probably the first, not the first, but he was a kind of major notion of a serial killer that he was. So that kind of sort of all played in in the creation of Hannibal Lecter. But going back to, was I cheesed off about it? I mean, to a certain extent, of course, yeah, I was pissed off, but it's, you know, you have to learn not to hold on to things. I mean, I, it's like, the thing that irritates me more than anything else, it's somebody else called Brian Cox, who is, for me, is a veritable pain in the arse. And he's younger. And he's younger. And that really annoys me. But that is a test of your, and you realise nothing belongs to you, not even your own name, you know, belongs to you. So in a way, you learn to let go, you learn not to say, well, I have to hold on. Well, I'm Hannibal Lecter. No, me is me. But in fairness, I mean, what happened was that I did the first film. It was produced by Dino De Laurentis who made the film and it got incredible reviews, but he went bankrupt. So the film never got proper distribution because he couldn't afford to distribute it. So he was broke. And then there was this other book, which was sent to me, I got it. I have a proof coffee of Silence of the Lambs, which was sent to me by Tom Harris. I read it and he said, it would be great if you could do this. I said, great, and I never heard any more about it. And then, and this is the other irony, my agent, Jeremy Conrie, rhyming, he said, there's a script's comment and it's very similar to the script you did. He said it's an offer for Tony Hopkins, who was his client. He said, and the character was different. They changed the name because Michael Mann owned the name for someone known as he managed to own the name of Hannibal Lecter. But if you notice, there's two different spellings, which is how they got round it. And so I said, well, it's the same story, Silence of the Lambs. He said, well, Jonathan Demme is doing it and Tony's been offered it. And I said, oh, that's good. But Jonathan Demme, it was his film. He decided to do it his way and he decided to do it with his cast. And he was, you know, he's entitled to do that. And that's the luck of the draw, as they say. But it's kind of gone on now for 30 years, nearly, of who is the best Hannibal Lecter. I always say the differences are, Tony Hopkins plays a mad, I play him insane. And that's the difference. So can I ask you then, you know, have you got a favourite role that you have played or do you think your favourite role has yet to come? I mean, I've been very, I mean, I've played, I say I've been incredibly lucky. I've played a lot of things I've done, you know. Things which I've been responsible, you know, I've created, not created, but like young writers have. I mean, in the cinema, there's a film called The Escapist, which I produced, which was written by a young writer called Rupert Wyatt, who, on the strength of that, directed the first big revival of the Planet of the Apes movie. And it was a script that, he came to me and he said, he wanted me to do something else. And I said, listen, I'm always asked to play these parts. I said, I'm always asked to be right back. Occasionally, I'd like to be centre forward. I said, I'd like to play a part, which is not just at the perimeter of it, but something at the back. So he went to me and he literally wrote the script and he threw it down and he said, that's for you. So, and it's a wonderful script and it's a great cast and we had a great time doing it. And I also produced it. So that, The Escapist is something. In the theatre, the big thing for me in the theatre was when I did, it was taking on Shakespeare and doing Titus Andronicus in the theatre, because that was a play that people hadn't touched because of the extremity of the play. And it's got, it's an embryonic play because it's written in the early period of Shakespeare. It's written exactly at the same time as Richard III and he's written it as, and all Hamlets in it, Othello's in it, all the great plays, he tries out all the ideas in this one play and I think it's a sensational play. But it's a play that people avoided because of the ribaldry, the laughter, because it's, you know, you have rape, you have people getting their hands cut off, people getting their heads cut off, it's got everything. And it's kind of ludicrous, but that's the point of it. And certainly what we've seen now, especially in recent times, the horror of certain things. So it deals with the horror of things, but it deals with it, you know, it's about an old general who's so brutalised, he's forgotten to, you know, he's lost all his family to the throne and finally he's only got four kids left and he suddenly realises that he's been duped, that he's been following this kind of false old ideology. And it's a great play, it's a great play. And I had, and I scored a huge success in it and it's a play that still follows me yet in the theatre because nobody's done it quite like. And it's also to do with the director who was Deborah Warner. So that was a great thing in the theatre. So there's a couple. You've gone full circle because you're now directed in the university. We've already talked about the Michael Petal exhibition and I know you're really quite passionate about Dundee, the university and Michael Petal. Maybe just say a few. Well, the Petal collection is part of, you know, first Pat Watley showed it to me a few years ago and Liam Fairman did it and done a fantastic job with it. And I, what I realised was that Dundee has a fantastic archive which is in dire need of really taking care of. We were, and I keep, it's a tambourine, I keep banging about our archive. And I believe history is important. And I think we're in an age now where we don't look to history in the same way and I think we're cutting off our nose to spite our face by not. So I, and I just think there's so much going on. There's so much that Dundee has done over the years and the Petal is one of the finest examples, but there's lots of other stuff as well. But I'm concerned that the university, you see, one of the problems about, that's actually a problem of the designers, and this is Scotland, but is that we tend to be embarrassed about things. One of the great things about living in America is that they're not embarrassed about stuff. You know, there's an old, I think it's from the producers, you know, Zira Mastel, when he says, when you got it, flaunt it. Show it, show what it's worth, show what you do. I mean, Dundee is phenomenal. The life sciences is second to none. But we don't, people don't know it. You know, we know it, but they don't know it. So we don't sell it enough. We don't actually get out there and market it in the right way of saying, this is an incredible resource. I mean, we've got, we are now the fifth student, best student in the UK and we were the best in Scotland. Best student experience. And I think, and when that happened, I said, but we have to understand why we're the best student experience. We can't just sit back in our laurels and say, oh, well, we're the best student experience. What is it? You know, let's get into the nuts and bolts of things. And this is something that I feel very strongly about. You know, we, there's a lot of assumption goes on. And I want to see the university really nail its colours to, very firmly to the master Dundee and say, this is what we do. You know, you walk down, you walk onto the campus and you see all the work that's done with diabetes, the work that's done with eczema and asthma, the work that's done in tropical disease. I want to see that as part of the university, including the work that's done in the IT department, all the departments, including the wonderful legal work that's done with this, brokering of an oil legality. So this to me is very important and we don't do it nearly enough. We, and these, you know, and the people who spend their lives, really their lives doing this work, they need support, you know, because they can't do it for themselves, but we should facilitate them. There should be a kind of structure that says, these guys are doing this kind of work and you have to realise that this is world-class. And Dundee's a world-class place, but it isn't getting out there enough, you know. Okay, I'm going to leave it there because I'm going to give the audience an opportunity to ask questions. So if you put your hand up and catch your eye, can you, if I indicate to you, can you just keep your hand up so we've got a microphone to you? Okay, so who wants to start? The lady right in the very front. First of all... Just a minute, do we've got a microphone? Apparently they don't work. Thank you. My name is Caroline. That's my little boy, Manuela. We already met at the Meadows during the Indiref and all my friends envy the photo from Italy right to here. Yes, and I'm really pleased to meet you finally. I watch the Scottish Parliament very often and you're an example to all of us. To my son and to we as women, you empower us with your calm, your knowledge and the message that you give over this Scotland that is really, really, really proud. Thank you. Thank you very much. I am quite distressed that you're leaving, but I'm sure somebody wafi of your seat will take over. Anyway, you've touched a lot of things that are very close to me because I'm alone mother. I've brought up Emmanuel alone. He was born in Italy and we've been living in Scotland almost three years now. And I have been plaited with very bad health and I was working at the Scottish Enterprise as a receptionist and I lost my job after two and a half months and I've never been able to work ever since. But we are in Scotland and it pains me that I was lucky as you were lucky. This boy has been my carer and will be my carer until I'm not operated. I'm still waiting. He should be the end of this month. He's been my carer for more than two years. Sometimes I was really seriously badly off. In February I was in intensive care unit and had to stay in the hospital two years. He's been bounced about through foster carers. But as we say in Italy, not all that's bad kills you or harms you because Emmanuel Lland English very quickly when he came over. He was in Costolfing Primary School and we thank God that he landed there. When I became ill his head mistress and his school took a lot of attention to him and they managed to get him to apply for scholarships in the private schools and two of them actually offered him after the examination 100% scholarship, George Watson and Harriet's. And he's now at the Harriet's. Now I feel very guilty towards all the other lone parents because I know how difficult it is. I know how difficult it is even when you're working and I know that our children are falling through all the nets at all levels. And unfortunately not even the politicians are addressing with the name and signing lone parenthood and the extreme poverty that even a working class lone parents are going through. Now with the new welfare reform they're going to be poorer. What can we do? I am personally willing to set up a charity that addresses them and even addresses the stakeholders on their difficulties. How can we act as people to protect even these children because they deserve the same opportunities as the others? OK, thank you very much. I think that's a very, very powerful test to me that you've made. I don't know Brian if you want to be very... No, no, I do think it's indicative of... I mean in a sense it's interesting that you've made a journey from Italy to here, that you've come here and you've found a sort of haven in one sense with all the difficulties that go with it. And clearly there's an element of care at play. Kindness and care. But the truth is there's not enough of it. The truth is there's really not enough care and kindness. And societies have to operate from that. And that's what we've seen too little of, especially in the last few years. And it's something that hopefully I think in Scotland here we can redress. And it's something that seemed to me especially during the whole referendum issue I was very, very aware of the possibilities that there isn't elsewhere. And actually worries me about elsewhere. But at the same time given the fact that we've had created these structures we have to honour them. But it starts with care and it starts with kindness. And from there all is possible. I had to depend entirely on kindness and people who cared for me. Your son is the same. But it shouldn't be that he's going to Harriet's. I mean it's great that he's going to Harriet's. But that should be a given. That opportunity should be a given for many people. That they can make that journey. And too often that isn't happening. Because we're forgetting about something really, really fundamental. And it's like this whole argument about what's going down in the south now with the Labour Party and this guy Jeremy Corbyn. When I don't know Jeremy Corbyn I don't know him from Adam. But the man seems to be standing up and saying things which is about care and about looking after people. And people are saying oh no this guy is, he's lost the plot. And I'm going he can't have lost the plot. He's talking about something which is basic. And we don't talk about basic kindness or basic good actions at all. And it's a wonderful thing for your son that this has happened. So you should take heart. Yes, and you're right to do it for others. It's important. The gentleman up the back, very back. To ask a reasonably straightforward question I believe. If you could go back and speak to yourself as a 20 year old what piece of advice would you give yourself? Go back to being 20. If I was 20. If you could go back now and speak to yourself as a 20 year old what advice would you give yourself? I would just say keep on trucking. You've trucked quite well haven't you? No I mean I really believe it. You've got to stick to your last. It's the diversion. We sometimes we lose heart. It's so easy to lose heart. It's so easy just to keep your eye off the ball. But there's a way of doing it. And there's a way of sustaining yourself at the same time. And I think it's so important. We mess around with people's dreams too many times. And we try and say it's unreal. Well the whole business is unreal. Life is unreal. It's deeply unreal. What you can do is by having a vision. A vision gives you clarity. And it's that vision. And the more you follow that vision the clearer things become. Okay. Next question will be in the front. I just want to ask Brian. Did you ever go to the berries when you were younger? Did you ever go where? The berries. And what did you think of the play the berries? I never saw the play. I used to do the berries. I used to do the berries and I did the tatis as well. And you didn't see... You didn't see is it Robertson? No I didn't see that play. But the berries is interesting. That was what brought my family from Ireland. Because my family came from just outside in the skillen. I mean I'm talking about in the 19th century, the middle of the 19th century. And they only came here because they used to come as itinerant workers. That's how they knew Dundee existed. Because they knew that they would come back and forth doing the berries, doing the seasons, doing the tatis. And that's been going on forever. And it was when they discovered about the weaving and the jute that they needed women. They didn't need men, that was the unfortunate thing. They didn't mean them men at all, but they needed the women because the women could weave and they could spin. And that was why my great-grandmother came here originally. Because she came here to work in the mills. And as you know Dundee was called Sheetown because it was 80% of the working population were women. And the men... And that was also where the idea of the indolent Irish worker wasn't the fact they were indolent Irish workers. They were farmers who suddenly had lost their farms because of the famine. And therefore they had to rethink their lives. And the only future was through their wives, actually. And that was the truth. No, no, no, no, no. We worked in Cox's mill, but we're not related to Cox's mill. Those Cox's actually are Belgian Cox's. They're COCQES. Right, okay dope. They were the rich ones. They were the rich ones. Yeah, exactly. No relation. Right, okay. Just to your right... TV career is still live and well. You were on the minder on Monday. I'm on minder. You were, your episode. I was on minder. That's where I'm fighting with Dennis on the bus. That was 30 years ago. I could not catch that bus now for all the tea in China. It would be impossible. The question sorry I was going to ask you is waiting for God, oh, that's a lot of lines. How do you learn them? Oh, tell me about it hen. Just tell me about it. I'm in the middle of line agony at the moment. And they're all very similar. Don't go there. We've got four weeks. The man's struggling. The lady in red. I've always wanted to say that. Hi Brian. Hello. Hi, my name's Liz. This is Zac. I was born in Dundee and so was Zac. I lived now in Edinburgh for 17 years. My son was born up in Nine Walls hospital. He was really poorly at birth and took a massive brain hemorrhage. I'm very blessed. Obviously he's here with me now. I'm so proud. The doctors at the Nine Walls hospital did save his life. Even though I've lived in Edinburgh for 17 years, my roots are still firmly in Dundee. Okay. Good for you. Thank you. Well done. The gentleman in the front. This guy here? And the First Minister's seat. Did you know you were sitting in the First Minister's seat? I did actually. You're in the First Minister's seat, but we don't worry any mind to be First Minister any more. On you go. I just wondered what your view of the redevelopment of Dundee at the waterfront and how much difference that's going to make to Dundee in terms of its international standing. I think it's unbelievable. If you asked me that when I was about 12 or 10, what Dundee was going to be like, I would never have imagined that. I would never have imagined that Dundee... I mean it comes from the people, because Dundee has not had a particularly healthy history. Corruption has never been too far away with certain Dundonians. We won't go into that too deeply, but that element has been... There were quite a few villains when I was growing up. There was a guy who was in the demolition business, and I thought they were actually trying to demolish the town, because it was going to be the biggest car park in Europe. But now what has happened in the last 15 years is phenomenal. I think Dundee is going to be... Well, you know, it's going to be the Bilbaugh of the North. I mean it's going to bring so much. And that one emblem of that museum sitting in the front there will just mark it with the bridges and then that. It's fantastic. I'm so proud. And it's something I'm really, really pleased to be part of. And I want to be... That's why I'm going to run again next year for my rector again, because I want to be rector when that happens. Excellent. The lady in the second row, hand up. So we're coming, right? Okay. There you are. Hello Brian. Hello Brian. I just wanted to thank you for being patron of our Peter Collection. We couldn't have a better rector or a better patron for our collection. But the collection, the exhibition downstairs is called Michael Peter Photograph's Politics and Focus. And I wondered if you could say a bit about how you have interfaced with theatre and politics during your career. Well, I've always tried to keep it separate. But the truth is you can't. When you go on, you know, if you keep doing your job for as long as I've been doing my job and you realise the sort of internecine things that go on and the deals that are made and how it's all politics and you see how the show is run and the basis on what the show is run and how, you know, how certain pieces of work are not allowed to the fore because of political, usually because of political decisions. And quite frankly, I, it's made me, well, the thing is I was never, I was never a nationalist. You know, I was never interested in that when I was young. But in the last year, because of what happened and coming here and suddenly sort of deciding, no, I think this is a good thing. I mean, I was very tentative about it. But then when I saw how people treated those who had this persuasion, I thought, I'm right, they're wrong. And I've learnt that. I've learnt that through time, that this is something that's organically grown on me, that we have a lot to offer and we're not allowed to offer it. We've got a lot of ideas and we're stopped from sending those ideas to where they should go. And I found that really quite shocking. And I found it quite shocking when the three Amigos, as I call them, arrived last year, up in Edinburgh, or, well, they didn't even come to Edinburgh. One went to a room in Aberdeen and the other one went to the east end of Glasgow and he was horrified because he couldn't understand the wee wife he came up and spoke to him and he was like that. Oh, hello, what am I going to do? And I thought, you're the leader of the Labour Party for Friggs sake. You know, you should be able to understand what this woman is saying. That's your job. That's, you know, get brief, find out what it's about. And that disconnection has made me more and more realise that I'm much more of a political animal than I'm proud to be so. But now I see it as part of my job, you know, that it's all length-sent. It's all beginning to mix. I mean, I'm still going to be down the line when the penny finally drops. But it's all, there's so many strands heading towards something in terms of being back to the university, being involved in the referendum, doing my job, coming back to work in Scotland whenever I can, you know. So it's, there is some kind of, it has some kind of sense to it, really. OK. The gentleman in the front here. And then, final question from... There's a lady there. She's had her hand up for ages. There. Right. OK. We'll take three. We'll take... The man in blue will take... Can you not see it? You'll be a lovely blonde here. And then there's another lady in blue up the back. So one, two, three. OK. And you will be the last question. Gentlemen. A light-hearted one. Have you any plans to set up a Bob Servant heritage trail in Brodyferry? Yes. Yes. I have decided... Yes, we are... we are definitely going to have a Bob Servant heritage trail in Brodyferry. And I've decided when I retire, I shall probably be in charge of that Bob Servant heritage trail. I'll look for a job next year. I could do it. Yes, I think it's very important. We're going to, by the way, we're doing another series of Bob next year. Bob is back on next year. And it's going to be Bob and health. So he gets a few health scares. So watch this space. OK. The lady... Blonde lady. Yeah. My questions about Scotland's languages as an actor, you kind of have to have an appreciation of linguistics if you're to perform them. Do you believe that Scotland's languages have a role to play in the future of the identity of people here going forward? Scotland's languages... Scotland's languages... The Gaelic. It's not just the Gaelic. It's also to do with the Doric. It's to do with the accent. I did Shetland, which I love. The reason I did it was because I wanted to go to Shetland. It wasn't because I wanted to do Shetland, but I'd never been to Shetland. I was then eight. I thought what a wonderful holiday to go to Shetland and absorb Shetland. And of course it was fantastic. Hi Mary. That's Mary there who taught me my accent. I just adored it. So I tried. It was OK wasn't it? Thank you darling. So I did the accent. And then in a room or in London I was asked to tone the accent down. I was asked to and I had of course I kind of went to Weebuck Berserk in the room. I was totally against my everything I believe in. Because if you've got an opportunity to do something which is particular. This is something that I've realised too. It's just this notion of the particular. We seem to forget the particular. Something which is endemic to that culture. That area. That sound. What that is. It's like somebody said to me the other day it was Sinead Cusack. Now does anybody speak Irish here? Anybody have the Irish? Gaelic? No? Do you have the Gaelic? What is forever in Gaelic? Can you remember? What? When you say like Aleppo Gubra Is it forever? Oh really? In Irish it's very different. And she told me she said that waiting for Godot when everybody is saying who is Godot what is Godot, what is Godot but it's actually in the Gaelic Godot is a word like that means forever. So actually what the play is about is waiting forever. Which actually makes total sense when you've been working on the play for the last four weeks away. It is waiting forever. Language is so important. It's important that the Gaelic gets its just desserts because that's what we are. I'm sorry I'm really sad that I don't speak Gaelic. But I can barely speak English. There was a lady with the blue dress. Okay, thank you. Thank you, that was great. I've got a question, a Bob Servant related question. Who was your role model for Bob Servant and what do you think you would make of Scottish politics today? Who was your role model for Bob Servant? Bob Servant he kept reminding me of somebody when I read it and I couldn't think who it was. And then dawned on me I realised who it was. And then Neil who wrote it said several of his friends because they brought a ferry that part of Dundee brought a ferry money thief all that area. My brother had a shop on money thief and these two four of Neil's friends he said clearly Bob Servant's Charlie Cox and he said why? And he said I don't know Charlie Cox. He said no, it's definitely Charlie Cox, there's no question. And actually the truth is that I am channeling my late brother that it is Charlie Cox. My brother used to have a he had a wee shop it was almost in a hedge you know it was like in money thief and there was a hedge and there was this wee shop in the middle of it, it was my brother and you go into my brother's shop and my brother, in fact there were some comments to it in the last one my brother would run out of chains and say hen I'm not going to change he says here, duck a cabbage he wants some tomatoes he's getting a tomato I'll get a couple of tomatoes and I'll get a cabbage so that's very much my brother Okay, can I thank you all very much for coming and I'm sure that you would want to join me in thanking Brian Cox who's been absolutely fantastic answering all of your questions with such grace and such humour so can I invite you to thank Brian in the music way Brian, thank you very much indeed I've found it a fascinating conversation can I remind people audience that there are events throughout the festival politics you're very welcome to go downstairs to the cafe and hang about there's other events on later that you're welcome to buy tickets too if indeed you need to but thank you all very much for coming I've enjoyed it immensely thank you