Jonathan LaPaglia

Acting for me was hard enough without having to think of the accent. And also, when I was auditioning for stuff I would walk into the room with an Australian accent, and I would do the audition in an American accent, and they would invariably say, 'Yeah, it's that good, but I can still hear the oddity coming through.'

The movie industry has collapsed into two types of film - the $100 million blockbuster or the small independent film of $1 million or less - and the huge middle ground has been lost. Cable is filling that void.

I think it's unreasonable to expect kids at 17 to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives. And actually, I guess I had a desire to be an artist, and I did enroll in art school out of high school.

One of the first coaches I worked with on the national team told me that I was too skinny, too puny, and had no natural acceleration. He said I'd be better off looking for another facet of sport to follow. That was a really, really bad moment. For a long time, I felt as if my dad was the only one who had faith in me.

To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision.