I know from my own experience and from other people in the business that when you come from a place where nobody knew who you were and then there is this sudden shift to where everybody now knows who you are, there's an adjustment that you have to make.
I think I see her, please let me off this bus. Nadine, honey, is that you?
A man will work and slave in obscurity for ten years and then become famous in ten minutes.
From a nobody, I seem to have become a celebrity of sorts overnight. I am dumbstruck and overwhelmed.
People think I'm an overnight success. No. It's just that you all found me overnight.
People newly emerged from obscurity generally launch out into indiscriminate display.
I found out I got 'The Little Drummer Girl' and my BAFTA nomination in quick succession, and I just didn't expect it to be like that. I thought there would be a lot more time in between. It's been an overwhelming experience.
And, in nineteen seventy two Olympic Games I wasn't really going to be a star, and overnight I became a star.
Fame, on its best day, is kind of like a friendly wave from a stranger by the side of the road. And when it's not so good, it's like a long walk home, all alone, with nobody in when you get there.
When people are bothering you constantly when you're trying to do just a simple thing that humans do every day but they won't let you do it without bugging you about it, that was a hard thing. Because I became a movie star overnight. From a working actor and working writer to a movie star.
Nothing could prepare you for being instantly famous.
You never know where you're going to find the same thoughts in another brain, but when it happens you know it right off, just like you were connected by a small electrical wire that suddenly glows red hot and sparks.
I was minding my own business, really, and then all of a sudden, Hollywood approached me.
It's a bit startling to achieve global recognition before the age of 30, on account of your sister, brother in law and your bottom.
Having to deal with people all of a sudden knowing who we were and knowing our music and all the rest of it was definitely something that we had to get used to.
I had that perfect deadpan ... for these commercials. Within the first eight months I had eight national TV commercials. I'm a true Hollywood success story - knew no one, had no connections.
See, the SAG awards caught me totally by surprise.
Television makes you very famous. It's very strange.
Everything kind of happened like: 'Bam!' for me. One minute I was living on a council estate somewhere, then I won the Mercurys, then all of a sudden press and people were in my face.
Fame is always a shock to the system; there's no school to go to, there are no books to read, and when it hits you, it's a surprise. You could be working for 10, 20 years and when it finally hits you, you get knocked down.
It's kind of interesting to experience that kind of a ride after well, essentially so many years of enjoying a career based on failures and then suddenly something clicks. The weird thing is, I never changed a thing. The process is still the process as it ever was. The fact that people decided to go and see a movie that I was in was probably the most shocking thing that I've ever been through.
People thought we were a joke because we got noticed so fast.
