Michael Crawford

I think one of the best words in the English language is 'compassion.' I think it holds everything. It holds love, it holds care... and if everybody just did something. We all make a difference.

Divorce is never a pleasant experience. You look upon it as a failure. But I learned to be a different person once we broke up. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success.

I'd be totally exhausted by mid-afternoon, and I could barely climb the stairs at home. It was particularly alarming because all my life I'd enjoyed doing all my own stunts in shows, taking on every physical challenge. Yet suddenly, I'd become like a very old man. I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea what.

I moved out to New Zealand to live as I thought the warmth and peace and quiet would help me. I went away and changed my whole life routine.

Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do from success, and in some ways it's better to have failure at the beginning of your career, or your life.

I really didn't realise until I got back the work that goes into a performance. You're like an athlete - if you haven't been practising things tighten up. I had to do a lot of practice work, but I got through it. Even when I was 21 I would have a 40-minute nap on the day of a show, and I will still do that.

In 2004, I was on the West End stage in The Woman In White, and for every show I had to climb into a fat suit to play the obese Count Fosco. It was hard work, and unbearably hot, but I sailed through because I'd always kept myself fit.