DAVID JASON

I always say it is not the arrival; it is the journey.

Despite offers, I have never felt the urge to try to make it in Hollywood.

We get the impression through film and TV that Americans are violent gangsters with guns or upper-middle-class people in romcoms. I really liked the people. They were really warm. They could have been Brits. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

People ask me if I am thinking of retiring. Well, it doesn't occur to me. Different day, different challenge, different way. Lovely jubbly.

That's humour - doing what funny people have done since comedy began without being edgy and pushing boundaries.

I shall act until I drop. I just want to keep doing it and making it fun.

I enjoy the work; I just don't like the glamour side of it. I find that very difficult to handle.

I won't let my daughter watch 'EastEnders.'

Comedy is a funny business, which you have to take seriously.

I would like 'Frost' to go on forever, but you don't want people in the press hammering you, saying you've outstayed your welcome or that it's not believable anymore.

In this business, you have to have what they call an idiotic determination to succeed.

The ups and downs are part of what has made you.

I hadn't been to drama school. I hadn't been to university and acted there. I had no qualifications behind me.

In 1977, while I was performing in a play in Cardiff, a friend introduced me to a striking redhead called Myfanwy Talog, famed for her appearances on Welsh television with the comedy duo Rees and Ronnie. We were instantly smitten and eventually moved in together, sharing 18 happy years.

I wouldn't like to get trapped in a long series.

I want to encourage young people to get up off the sofa and get out there - as long as you want something hard enough, you can do it.

I'm an actor, and so of course I want to see TV companies making good dramas. I want that to be a priority.

How do I feel about being called a national treasure? I think it's marvellous if that's people's opinion. But I'd rather have the money than the label.

I grew up in London, a city devastated by the bombing. I am, you might say, a Blitz Baby.

I suppose that I just grew up knowing, in a very vivid way, that if it hadn't been for the men who fought in the Second World War, we'd all be living in a very different world now.

I have a yellow labrador, Tuffy, and a little rescue dog, Bella, who is the boss.

While scuba diving off the British Virgin Islands about 25 years ago, our boat's anchor got stuck. I dived down to release it, but I got separated from the boat and was stranded as it sped away. I had to swim for an hour to the nearest island with all my scuba kit on before I was rescued.

Classic comedy is classic comedy, and it will go on for years.

We seem to have lost our British sense of humour. It's a great shame. We have to be so careful nowadays; we have lost a lot of humour because people are too frightened of getting too near touchy subjects.

I started at the Incognito Theatre as an amateur.