"you've got to earn a living, son. "you know, you've got to..." absolutely. an accountant. an accountant! derek, you've had one of the most storied careers in acting. baftas, a tony, oliviers, emmys. baftas, a tony, oliviers, emmys. you've been in the gladiators, nanny mcphee, i, claudius, of course. are you satisfied? are you satisfied? do you look back and think, "i'm good, i've done well"? i have been the luckiest actor you will ever meet... well, i'm going to talk well, i'm going to talk about that later with you, about that later with you,

cos i don't think it is all luck. cos i don't think it is all luck. but, anyway. but, anyway. well, i've been around for over 60 years, and i've been given so many opportunities, you know, and i... and i still enjoy it. i don't think i can do much stage work any more. that's. .. that's become a bit scary for me. the memory? tricky... the lines? tricky, tricky, the memory. and the exposure and the... with the camera, i can stop.

not a good thing. yes. obviously... i mean, obviously shakespeare, emperors, claudius... was there something about inhabiting people from the past that particularly appealed to you, particularly appealed to you, resonated with you? resonated with you? i think it happened because i did a lot of the classic roles. and... and... in that sense, you get to play in that sense, you get to play kings, princes, emperors. kings, princes, emperors. and i did a lot of and i did a lot of from hamlet that particularly, shakespeare and i... shakespeare and i... right from school days — i played hamlet at school when i was 17, and that kind of... i always thought that i wanted to be an actor. i had no talent for anything else. i had no talent for anything else. and... and... and hamlet confirmed it.

0k, is there a line 0k, is there a line from hamlet that particularly, today, you even remember? oh, i used to be able to remember all of it. "to be, or not to be, that is the question. "whether �*tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings "and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms "against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them." that's a bit of...

that never occurred. no, no, no, no, no, no. actors are... there was nothing in my background that was special. i was an east end boy, you know. butl... that's what i feel. there was never any alternative. that's what i wanted.

that's what i thought i could do. and it was the... i can't act on my own. when tv and movies were so much more ubiquitous, you may not have gone or was it something about theatre and live performance? i think it was... so theatre was easily available.

they knew nothing they knew nothing about theatre, actors. about theatre, actors. and they had this son, who was reasonably clever at school, reasonably academic, reasonably academic, ended up going to university and all that. ended up going to university and all that. so they were very chuffed, very proud of that. not just any university. not just any university. cambridge, stjohn�*s. what do you think they expected for you? what did they think young derek and i stayed there for three years. what did they think young derek was going to become? was going to become? they never... they never mentioned it. they never mentioned it. they never... i thought when i went i thought when i went into the theatre, which was a world into the theatre, which was a world they had no knowledge of at all, "acting? being an actor?" being an actor?" but it all changed but it all changed when i got my firstjob, when i got my firstjob, which was the birmingham rep, which was the birmingham rep,

and i stayed there for three years. and they would come up from london to see everything i did. they would drive up to birmingham, and... and they suddenly kind of switched. you know, they thought, "well, he's enjoying himself. "he's earning a living. what's wrong with that?" yeah. you know, "people are... they seem to like him. "they respond to him. our son's an actor!" you know, and they were so supportive, you know, because it was a world that was alien to them. i'd had a good education. ihad... i'd been to university, and in their heads, "the world is your oyster. "you're going to be an actor? "there's no steadiness in acting. "you've got to earn a living, son. you know.

you could become an insurance broker. absolutely. an accountant. an accountant? oh, well, that would have been the ace. yes. "but you're going... you're going to go up to birmingham?" not that we want to disparage accountants. i'm sure there's very, very fine accountants out there. they laugh of course not, | but it wasn't my scene at all. how did it affect you, becoming famous? i don't think it affected me at all, really. fame is really how you use it. and if fame meant more work, fame was good. but that's sort of what it meant to me. it... of course, there's a... there's a little tingle when somebody says, "oh, mrjacobi, i saw you in this. "can i have your autograph?" of course, there's that, "oh, yes." but that's all... you know.

i don't think being an actor inflated me in any way, really. cos i knew how difficult it was and how easy it was to muck it up. do you think there's a difference between being an actor who has primarily come from theatre and the classics and the stage... and, i mean, look at young actors today. i mean, stars are made in the space of one movie performance, and they may not have had very much experience beforehand. yeah. what... do you think those stars could have made it in your world of night after night and three years at the birmingham rep? is it... is there a difference? and do you look at the quality of the acting?

no, actually... you go through a period of... ultimately, it's not enough. you have to come up with... not you don't have a very handsome face, derek! he laughs i don't want for a minute to be implying that.

and the proof is in the pudding. in a sense, they have a head start because they're nice to look at. mmm. so it was a huge learning experience — a new play every four by laurence olivier, taken to the national theatre

yeah. bob stevens, you know... greats. it was amazing. the reason i was asking about how you looked and how you saw yourself kind of physically as an actor was cos you have spoken a lot about luck. yes.

was that luck, really? that he was on, apparently, on a trip round the reps in the country... ..to find the company that he wanted to create at the old vic to play but maybe you'd have become... somebody would have spotted you anyway. i don't know. i think there's talent. and i think there's luck. andzwjthtgut that luck.i .

out, but nobody�*s seeing it. nobody�*s appreciating it. i still think somebody... i still think somebody... been in the audience, or somebody would have i don't believe it. i think once you start... that you are talented, i think that's wrong. ithink... interesting. not to be... don't believe, "oh, god, i'm so good at this."

and thereby maybe get better. "but it's a lovely world to be in, and i want to be "successful in that world." but it is a world that i feel absolutely at ease in. life it's going to be. how much of a struggle was it being gay at a time when it was illegal? erm... and widely condemned? yes... my... i was always... as a boy, i was... i knew that something was... it's wrong to say

something was wrong — mm—hm. and i didn't acknowledge it for a long time. i knew exactly what it was. you know, iwas about...i6, i suppose. and her reaction, god bless her, was, "you're 16. against what she didn't want. well, this was the 1950s.

yes. yeah. but it was never mentioned again. and... they accepted it. you know, they totally accepted it. it was a time when it was difficult. it was because there... gay people were persecuted. i didn't put it around that i was gay, you know. i was very discreet, i suppose. i was determined not to let it appear in my head as a disease... i think you're very optimistic. i've said it so many times, talking to you — i was so lucky.

oh, god, i... i didn't really everface big problems or big obstacles. you're still acting... thank god. ..of 87. well, things drop off. and you slow down. your brain... i don't any more. i think that that, ,.

i can't see very well out of my right eye. i can still walk, talk. ..but... ..i have a lady who i can hear in my ear... ..who feeds me my lines. now, i know my lines. i've studied the part and i know how to... ..take her cues and speak the lines. i don't know whether i should have told you that, but i am not the only one.

you giving your gift to us for longer. it's... i mean, i'm not totally in charge. yeah. yes. keeps them skiing longer. yes, that's true. to your roles or life? or is that...? i'm very... for which i am deeply grateful.

butl... i can't complain about anything in my life. really. from... ..being an evacuee as a very young child... in the second world war? in the second world war. iwas... when war broke out, i was about...four, three, four, i had a wonderful time. i was evacuated to the country, to a pub. i had a year and a half in a pub. i wasn't drinking in those days. katty chuckles but i had a wonderful time. | and i adored theatre.

butl... in all respects, i am... yes. i can't complain about anything. pleasure. thank you. was it all right? lovely.

hello there. and the good news is there's more sunshine to come it's looking mostly dry away from the far north west, northern ireland.

a few spots of drizzle in that from our old front, some sunny spells to the north. it's windy for north west scotland, wet and very windy for the northern isles and some sunshine ahead of the front. top temperatures between ten and i2 celsius. as we head into tuesday, but again, as it bumps into that really quite windy across the northern half of the uk. of rain across the western isles pushing into northwest scotland

milderfeeling air. still some rather chilly nights, perhaps in the south, but we're going to be looking at temperatures climbing so 14 or 15 celsius perhaps in the far south east, the sunset times as well. bye for now.

this is not a moment for more talk. it's time to act. spoke to journalists — telling the bbc he was and — stars have gathered for hollywood's biggest night of the year — the oscars are now under way. we'll be live in los angeles ceasefire in ukraine, as a first step towards ending the war.

backing was necessary.