A variation for Sutherland

I am a film actor. That's what I do. Enigmatic Variations is a good play - it's funny, provocative and challenging. I play a Nobel laureate writer named Abel Znork who feels that love interferes with just about everything, so he excises it from his life and moves to an island and writes. Whatever he needs, he has sent in - food, a pretty little whore, alcohol.

And then a journalist played by the Broadway actor John Rubinstein - who won a Tony award for Children Of A Lesser God ? comes over and says, "Wait a second. I don't think this is good," and everything turns upside down.

The play will go on to New York, I presume, though it's a big investment, financially, doing a show in New York. You invest $1.5 million there to put a play on and people want to be really sure of their product.

We did this play first in Los Angeles and then in Toronto, and people laughed all night and stood up on their feet at the end and yelled and applauded. Maybe we should have gone to Boston or Denver before Broadway, but it seemed like a nice idea to come to England.

It's a wonderful play, really unique, and it's an hour and a half without an interval. You go in and you go out and you can make a 9.45pm dinner reservation. Even better, you've got something to talk about.