It’s hard because I’m attached to so many of my roles for so many different reasons,” he says. “But I do have a special affinity with the role of Gollum because, not only was it an amazing character to play, but it spawned a huge change in direction of where I was going as an actor: working in the digital realm.

One of the things I’m proudest of is that today is a Friday, and hundreds of Gypsy bands will be playing for tips, and they will play a lot of my songs. I like the idea that because of that, some kid will have marmalade on his bread.

I suppose it’s easy to say, and it may be true, that my role in the development of the laser is perhaps the most important to society. Certainly in terms of applications, and the direct effects on humans, that has been quite important. On the other hand, there are other things which most people don’t know about, and in the scientific area, that I could argue are really quite important, the discoveries there.

Yes, and that gives me incredible pride, and the fact that Ruvkun is the other awardee, is incredible, because Gary is such a good friend. I mean you ask me what my first sense was, it’s surprise, and secondly of course it’s a kind of muted joy because, you know, whenever this kind of thing happens to basic scientists, especially scientists working on the nematode, I think it’s a wonderful thing for everybody doing this kind of work.

I always think about things, and if something puzzles me… Well, that of course was one of Darwin’s secrets. Whenever something puzzled him, he tried find a theory. He made a conjecture, as (Karl) Popper would call it, and see if it worked out and that’s true even today.

My father had a wonderful library, and we always bought books galore, and I devoured all the books of explorers that went to various places in the world. I admired what Humboldt had done and Bates and Darwin and the Swedish explorers, Sven Hedin and others. I was dreaming all the time about someday being an explorer, going to the tropics, going to the jungles, seeing new things, discovering strange animals and so forth, but of course it was a dream world.

Professor [Bernhard] Rensch influenced me a great deal because I talked with him about these matters and in his book he raised all the problems that would... or at least most of the problems that would occupy my mind in the later years.

Birds are still very much my hobby

The interests of a person plays a considerable role. For instance, people who are born naturalists should choose different professions than people who have a spectacular mathematical talent. I think it depends on a person’s talent, what he should choose and what he should love. If you don’t love what you’re doing, you’re not going to do a good job.

Anyhow, I talked it over with my mother, and she said, “Well, if that’s what you want, go right ahead.” She was a wonderful woman. And so I did.