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Had my dad not been short and fat and balding, there's no doubt his career would have been very different. But he could do lots of stuff and made a very good career out of it. He had an incredible work ethic because he lost his father when he was very young, and the family had to pull together.

My career has been successful, but it's been a grind of hard work.

Most good roles are written for young men. We are fixated on youth. So however much people say there is nothing wrong with being bald, the reality is once the hair is gone, you might not get the parts.

The only way to sustain a career is to be as prolific as you can be, and open to opportunities.

Whatever success I may have attained is due to the fact that since I was old enough to work at all, my ambition has never deserted me.

I struggled to learn basic skills, get a grip on markets, find my own unique voice, create story lines and come up to speed with the industry. I struggled for ten years before having any success.

I grew up in a council house in a poor Scottish town. I came of age during the recession of the mid-1980s when unemployment in my area reached 40 per cent.

Work hard, earn a great living, get whatever you want out of life, have all the stuff you want. But there should be a ceiling on it-enough is enough!

Somewhere along the line you've got to do your apprenticeship. But I'd want half a chance of being successful at it.

I worked full time jobs, basically doing manual labor until I could make enough money supporting myself as a musician.