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When Christopher Plummer was growing up, he studied piano. "I thought seriously of becoming a concert pianist," he says. "But I soon found that that was very lonely and very hard work. So I thought, 'Well, I'm a good mimic, I might as well go into the theatre.' I wasn't good at anything else, so in I went."

That happy decision has led to a more than 60-year career in theatre, film and television. Plummer is a stage giant. He has won many awards, including two Tonys for Best Actor — one for a play, one for a musical — and this year, at age 82, an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor (for "Beginners").

Plummer was born in Toronto and started acting while in high school in Montreal. "My mother took me to every play that came to town, and ballet, and music," he recalls. He decided on acting, he says, in part for the "glamour." One early influence was seeing Laurence Olivier in the 1944 film of "Henry V." "I was still at school and went to see the film and thought...this was terrific stuff. And glamorous."

He spent time learning his craft in repertory companies. "That's the way you should start. Playing hundreds of different roles."