Patrick Stewart appeared on Regis and Kelly, where he discussed his Yorkshire upbringing, ballroom dancing and his work on 'Macbeth'.

"If I was going to a friend's house to see if he would come out to play with me," said Stewart, "I would say to him 'At ta laikin aht.' Regis and Kelly looked at him uncomprehendingly and Stewart translated. "'At ta', 'are you', 'laikin', now that's a dialect work which means 'playing', and long ago actors use to be called laikers, that was a word for 'performance' or 'play'. 'Aht' being the dialect for 'out'. "Laikin" stems from an old Viking term for "play" and Stewart's phrase literally translated would be "Are you playing out?".

Stewart discussed his school days, where he learned ballroom dancing. This came in use later, when he played a dance instructor who danced with Leslie Caron of An American in Paris and Gigi fame in Let it Be Me. "I danced with a woman who danced with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire," exclaimed Stewart.

Work in the play Macbeth is "intense," said Stewart. "It's a very bloody show, I mean truly bloody. My hands are covered in blood, not once, but twice in the play. And you've got to be careful about this stuff. One night in London when we were at the Gielgud Theater, I left the theater very quickly. I hadn't cleaned up too carefully and out on the street walking through Soho, I saw the police. They had got a couple of young guys and they were looking at their hands, I don't know why...and I thought, if they stop me and they look at my hands...I had blood under my fingernails!"

To see the clips, head here and here. Thanks to rockers94 for the clip!

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