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Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that's available.

When you're a performer, of course you want an audience, but it's very, very different from courting fame.

I was not able to understand how it could be right to pay an actor, or a singer, or an instrumentalist for entertaining the public and wrong to pay a ball player for doing exactly the same thing.

The idea that any performer type is owed anything is a joke to me.

A tremendous social responsibility comes with being a successful public performer.

We're not getting paid. We have these great musicians with us and it gives us a real charge. And the audience gives us a charge, because they keep it interesting all the time.

I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.

I didn't get paid for performances most of my life. If I did, I would be billionaire now, and I'm not.

As far as I'm concerned, an audience is an audience. Whether it's an audience in Hull or the National Theatre, that's who you play to. It's not money - it's good to get some, but that's not why I do it. You do it because you have to, to tell a story.

Involvement in public affairs is a legitimate use of celebrity.