What is your greatest fear?

The loss of physical, financial, and psychological independence.

When the audience walks toward the stage.

My wife going on The Real Housewives of New York City.

Not getting into heaven.

Being poor—or, worse, having Kelsey Grammer fight with Teddy Kennedy over who is to drive me home.

A bumpy flight … or driving with my son Sam, who drives great, but I still can’t believe he’s old enough.

That I would lose her.

Sometimes, it is the possibility of loneliness. Other times, it is the possibility of never being alone, having no privacy, being under the control of another.

Being on a Broadway stage and forgetting what the play is.

The thought that I might die with unresolved conflicts.

We live in a fearful age: Brexit, Covid, global warming, cancel culture, war in Ukraine. Add in pancreatic cancer and you find me in an advanced and complex state of anxiety.

Being onstage and forgetting why I’m there.

Rodents – including the tiniest mouse.

That injustice, ignorance, and fascism win.

To die before I know certain things.

A world without music.

That we’re going down the tubes as a country (make that the whole world).

I’ve always been frightened of the dark. I sometimes wonder whether it stems from being away filming from the age of five. I can remember being devastatingly homesick and having a little nightlight I used to look at to reassure myself things were all right.

I don’t have a great fear of anything. I look at things with positive eyes.

I am spooked by water underground, water in drains and water in machinery. I am very frightened of mill wheels.