It is amazing that something I did 23 years ago still has an audience that people respond to and I am touched and surprised that people are still very positive about.

Gerard reflects on the long afterlife of a performance—most plausibly his best-known screen role—and the way popular culture can preserve and renew an actor’s work across decades. The emphasis falls on audience response rather than artistic intention: he is “touched and surprised” that viewers remain enthusiastic, suggesting a gap between the moment of production and the later meanings fans attach to it. The quote also captures the humility and mild disbelief common to performers whose careers become identified with a single enduring part, highlighting how reception, nostalgia, and fandom can keep a work culturally active long after its original run.