I'm a New Zealander, born in Wellington, where they shot Lord of the Rings. I trained in New Zealand and I had a scholarship to go to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where my contemporaries were people like Martin Shaw and Brian Cox.

I spent ten years in England, I was at the RSC and the National and Bristol Old Vic, and then I returned and worked in Australia and New Zealand with all the main theatre companies there, television and film.

One led to writing Breaker Morant and I got nominated for an Academy Award, and then, in my old age, they decided that they needed somebody for this job.

I didn't know what it was, so I turned up, and suddenly somebody said to me, "Hallo, you're my Rygel." I didn't know what they were talking about, but it turned out that I became Rygel. Because of that I'm now flying all over the world.

What else could one do to culminate a career than to become a very great international star as the voice of muppet?