Somebody said that I'm a bit like a sponge, grabbing things here and there, soaking stuff up. [As a director] you have to be, really.

Well, Brief Encounter is certainly one of my top five favorites of all time. I looked at Brief Encounter very closely, to be honest.

Foxes was a movie that didn't do a lot of business but it didn't do too badly critically and eventually they offered me other things. The interesting thing was that next I tried a film called Star Man, which Michael Douglas was producing.

Their every instinct - and I have to say this is without exception - is to iron out the bumps, and It's always the bumps that are the most interesting stuff.

The danger is that if you have a bunch of ideas that you forget to use.

I was watching Monster's Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It's just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done. It made me feel very old, really, because it wasn't eccentric for its own sake, it was just very original.

I was speaking to Ridley Scott the other day and he makes a film every 18 months. He's amazing really.