Born in Yorkshire, Sands, 62, studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He had a role in Derek Jarman’s Broken English and went on to appear in The Killing Fields, A Room With A View and Arachnophobia. His latest films are Yeh Ballet, available on Netflix, and The Painted Bird, out later this year. He is married, has three children, and lives in Los Angeles.
When are you happiest?
Close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning.
What is your greatest fear?
Inactivity, immobility, ill health and boredom.
What is your earliest memory?
In a cot, seeing my father dressed as Father Christmas.
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
David Hare – he’s always fascinating and funny.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Impatience for people to finish a sentence, keep up on a hike.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Bigotry.
Property aside, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve bought?
A case of Chateau Margaux 59.
What is your most treasured possession?
My health.
What is your wallpaper?
A closeup of my wife Evgenia’s right eye; it’s always on me.
What would your superpower be?
Right now, to create a vaccine for the coronavirus.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
As a child, my brothers and I all agreed I looked like a horse.
If you could bring back something extinct, what would it be?
I would love to see a dodo waddling around in my garden.
Which book changed your life?
Light On Yoga by BKS Iyengar, which I read 23 years ago.
What is the worst thing anyone’s said to you?
Aged nine, I was told I wasn’t invited to a birthday party as I was too loud. I looked in and saw all these boys in party hats.
What is top of your bucket list?
A remote peak in the high Himalayas, such as Makalu.
What do you owe your parents?
I owe them for encouraging me to take an interest in the arts (my mother, who did secretarial work at a garage) and natural history (my father, who did agricultural soil surveys).
What does love feel like?
Being exquisitely alive.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I would love to have dinner with Derek Jarman once more.
What is the worst job you’ve done?
Father Christmas at a department store. The plaintive sadness of the children’s unrealistic requests was almost unbearable.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
Early 17th-century London, to see Shakespeare at the Globe.
What is the closest you’ve come to death?
In the early 90s, in the Andes, caught in an atrocious storm above 20,000ft with three others. We were all in a very bad way. Some guys close to us perished; we were lucky.
What song would you like played at your funeral?
Rufus Wainwright’s Get Happy.
How would you like to be remembered?
As an interesting, amusing father by my children.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
To be nice, and grab it with both hands, we know it is short.
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