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Ian Fleming was my cousin, you know. He was in naval intelligence.

I can bore for England on the subject of James Bond. But I knew I couldn't do it frivolously; I had to take it very seriously, however much fun I was having. And I had to make myself, you know, absolutely steeped in Bond and in Fleming and that world.

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company.

Peter Fleming was a famous English traveler, explorer and adventurer, whose non-fiction books were hugely successful. My father owned signed copies of all of them - he and Peter Fleming had become acquainted over some detail of set design at the Korda film studio in Shepperton - and I had read each of them with breathless adolescent excitement.

I only met Ian Fleming once, at a party given by my father's friend the director Carol Reed, at his house at 211 King's Road, Chelsea, the garden of which he shared with Peter Ustinov.

To be knighted, that would be amazing. I remember Alex Ferguson from Man Utd got it and Steve Redgrave - to be in the same category as them is amazing.

There are some tremendous actors in the U.K. who have been knighted, and I've spent much of my life admiring many of them, like Laurence Olivier. So it's very flattering to be in their company. But you also end up in the company of people you don't admire, including some rather dodgy politicians.

When I was growing up in Ossining, N.Y., playing pool with the guys, the thought that any one of us might become an actor was as far-fetched as being knighted by the queen of England.

British actors are renowned for being great villains in movies, like Bond films, all the rest of it.

I've been identified with James Bond or Thomas Crown for so long; suave, elegant, sophisticated men in suits. it's like you've been giving the same performance for 20 years.