Xander Berkeley

Xander Berkeley: It's just one of those things that happens in Hollywood. I try to do variations from one role to the next, but it could be worse. I don't want to play some bland guy, you know some putty in the crack plot pusher - that's not terribly interesting, so you want to play some guy who has at least some kind of function to the centre of the story and if it's not the hero it is going to be the bad guy.

Xander Berkeley (on his role in the movie Terminator 2): Yeah, that effect was done laboriously and painstakingly with a cast of the back of my head and a blade that comes out. It was not a digital effect. It was a total physical effect with puppetry and a blade that could contract. There was a small blade going out of the back of my head that retracted sideways away from the kitchen cabinet at the same time as the blade that was down my throat was pulled out. The problem was that the blade had to be far enough down my throat to look as though it was coming out of the back of my head. To get this right I had to practice sword swallowing for two weeks.

Xander Berkeley (on the terrorism element to 24): In season two, instead of stepping away from it they went into the centre of it and that was something else that we thought might have backfired. But the choices they have made have consistently paid off. It's something that people need and want to be more informed about because it does affect our personal lives.