Then I left school at 16 and worked in Perth Repertory Theatre, which was quite nearby where I lived. And I worked there for about six or seven months, as part of the stage crew.
I did some stage when I was a kid, around 16 or so. I was living in Melbourne and had a band. I was quite young. We weren't very good. Then I found a band in Perth. We played around for three years. We're in the 'History of Rock'N'Roll,' a book about Perth music.
When I left school I went to Australia for a year and worked in the drama department of a school in Perth.
Maybe six months out of drama school, I was working at the Dundee Rep Theatre, I worked there for about a year, and I had an audition for the National Theatre of Scotland. I went into the audition room and when I came out I realized my fly was undone. I did this whole dramatic speech with my fly hanging low.
People who have never done theatre before, and have only worked in front of a camera, would find it very difficult, I think, to know how to command a stage and work with the logistics of being on stage. They're very different. The theatre is quite tricky, actually.
After I left school at 16 I had three jobs: I worked in a ceramics factory, where I made toilet handles, I repaired cars for people and in the evenings and weekends I worked in a bar. I had to do them all to make ends meet.
I worked for a newspaper in Europe for, I lived in Europe for about seven years, so I worked in this sort of a yellow journalism kind of a thing, it was like a scandal sheet.
As soon as I left school at 16, I worked in a factory making aircraft components.
After 'Jewel In the Crown,' I hardly worked at all for about six months - which came as a bit of a surprise, I have to admit.
I worked on 'Happy-Go-Lucky' for seven-and-a-half months, and I'm in it for two minutes - largely because Sally Hawkins turned left instead of right.
I worked in rep for six years, then I came to London and to the National Theatre. What's better than that?
I worked in rep for six years, then I came to London and to the National Theatre. What's better than that
I didn't go to university. I studied theatre in high school and worked with Canberra Youth Theatre and The Street Theatre and other theatre organisations in Canberra, and that's how I got my training.
I had left school at 16, gone to stage school - and, until I was 22, I hadn't really played anyone but myself. Then in 1979, I made a film with Mike Leigh called 'Grownups,' which went out on the BBC, and overnight this new career opened up.
When my father left us, my mother went back to school immediately. She went to school in the day while we were at school, and she worked at night. She worked very hard to never let someone define her as a victim or a failure.
I worked in the mail room at CAA when I was in high school. I worked in the literary department, too. That was my after school job, believe it or not: I would read manuscripts and then evaluations on whether or not I thought they'd make good movies. Which was fascinating and kind of hilarious to me at the time.
I left school when I was 16; then I worked for my father, who was a welder. And I was a welder for three years, you know, welder of fabrication, metal 'cause it was a big industrial town, Sheffield. It was much steel and coal and stuff like that.