I'm pragmatic. If this is going to make sense, get me a job and in the end let me put my kids through school. I'll play killers. But my kids always ask me "do you die in this one too, Daddy?

One of the things I enjoy about acting is that I work at it all the time. I might be chopping onions as [Pierre Trudeau] and stirring a pot as somebody else. I'm trying things on for size. If you dissect my characterization of Trudeau I could show you where this piece is me, this piece is Hamlet, this piece is Cyrano de Bergerac. Hopefully they are seamlessly stitched together to create the illusion of Trudeau doing what we needed him to do.

My parents are Irish, so there would be music, jokes, stories, tall tales and a musicality in it. We all tried to outdo each other, and my parents seemed to be reasonably amused by this. I don't think they thought anybody would make a career out of it. They worried that acting would be a very disappointing and hard life. To this day they're not convinced.

I do dead Canadians. If he's dead and he's Canadian and he's famous, I'll be playing him at some point. I joke, but I have played about five or six famous Canadians so there's a certain amount of "Wait a minute, he's ours". But it was an accident of birth. I've lived in Canada for 40 years.