Kevin Whately Quotes

I don't see why it gives people the right to know about my private life if I don't want to talk about it.

You can't converse with Alzheimer's sufferers in the way you do with others; the dialogue tends to go round in circles.

While I'm driving north, I'm already thinking about kippers - it's worth the journey just to have kippers for breakfast on Saturday.

It always staggers me when series don't use their sidekicks.

I loved Martin Offiah, Andy Farrell and Shaun Edwards in that Wigan team, and they are still heroes today. They were outstanding players and great to watch.

I'm not particularly fond of the past, but I do ramble on about it quite a bit.

My family have been around Northumberland for five generations.

You just suddenly think that there's something quite childish about acting. Basically, it's pretending, isn't it? It's good fun and I enjoy it, but it's a funny way of making a living, particularly when you make a very good wage, as I've been fortunate enough to do.

I love taking the boat to the Farne Islands, a few miles offshore. It has a National Trust bird sanctuary with seals and every sort of seabird you can imagine.

You can see some very great theatre actors who don't work at all well on screen. They're trying too hard at it.

The real reason I love Bamburgh is that it's the only place in the world where I ever truly relax.

You get pigeonholed. Some people are film stars, and some are theatre stars who do one-off telly. Somehow, I get into long-running series.

I initially thought 'Lewis' was a terrible idea. The character had very much been Morse's work donkey and sounding board. But I was persuaded to do it, thinking if it was a flop, at least ITV would stop asking me. But the pilot took off, so we got back on this moving train, and we've never looked back.

I honestly don't think I sought fame. It wasn't something I courted or wanted, particularly.

I feel very at home in woodlands and could easily live there. I should have been one of Robin Hood's men.

I'm not interested in more money for the sake of it.

When I came down south, I went to one of the early Wigan Challenge Cup victories at Wembley, and I was totally hooked from then.

I'm very good at being out of work.

I never have liked detective dramas. I try to watch all of them to see what's going on, but I don't like them.

I know actors who court personal publicity because they believe no publicity is bad publicity.

Oxford is a funny place, as it is a mixture of town and gown. You have the students at the main university and at Oxford Brookes, but there is also a big working-class community.

I read the papers like everybody else, so I don't complain about what they print.

I've been going to Bamburgh for holidays since I was a child.

Put me on telly, and I think I have a relaxation on camera that makes an audience relax, too. It's not a conscious thing. Cameras don't bother me, whereas other people try to perform to them.

When you get to the end of a TV series, you feel totally out of sorts as an actor. You feel unfit; your voice box has collapsed on you because you've spent all day muttering into a microphone that's two inches from your head, and you feel desperate to spread your wings and do a bit of real thesping.

The more telly you do, the more it feels like a factory.

I don't like two-dimensional characters who are obviously villains from the moment they walk on stage.

McQueen is an astonishing film maker. He uses really unusual shots and builds incredible dramatic tension.

With your own children, you love them immediately - and with grandchildren, it's exactly the same.

I suppose it's a sentimental thing, but I wouldn't want to do more 'Lewis' than we did 'Morse' because I do still think of it as an offshoot.

From the time you are a tiny baby, a parent's love is usually unconditional. Whatever you do, your parents think you are the tops, but when their memory goes, you stop recouping the love you've put in.

I still remember going to a smart restaurant in Los Angeles, and the maitre d' knew my name and showed me straight to a table even though we hadn't booked. I get stopped for autographs by people from Sweden on the tops of mountains.

I wanted to be a stage actor but I got stuck on television. It took a couple of years to get used to.

Mum had regular mental tests with her specialist, but because of her academic background, she became brilliant at manipulating them.

I hate anything with 'celebrity' in the title, where people are playing to the cameras all the time.

Being a grandparent is whole new phase in your life.