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Because I came from a small town outside Glasgow, nobody from my school had ever gone into the acting profession. It was just something you didn't do. You joined the bank or became a teacher or whatever you did.

Frequently over the years, people have thought that they know me. Every character actor has this story, I'm sure. It goes like this: 'Um, do you play soccer?' 'Did you go to such and such church?' 'I knew you when you were with so and so... ' Then I go, 'Well, sorry...' and then they say, 'Wait a minute. Are you an actor?'

Sometimes people know I am an actor but are not really sure what I have been in.

My father and I used to tussle about me becoming an actor. He's from strong, Presbyterian Scottish working-class stock, and he used to sit me down and say, 'You know, 99 percent of actors are out of work. You've been educated, so why do you want to spend your life pretending to be someone else when you could be your own man?'

After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.

I walked onstage in a play at prep school, and with childish naivete, told myself, 'Wow, I'm an actor!'

I'm a bit of a fraud, really, as I didn't study acting at a drama school.

When I moved to Los Angeles, I figured I'm really going to make an attempt to become a real actor. And when I did that, I thought it was time for me to face my parents and tell them what I did.

Through all of this lovely interviewing, and nice things people say, and the rest of it, I have learned that I am an actor. That is my profession. That is my job. That is how I make a living. So I am just out there making a living.