Look at Jane Austen. Her characters derive in a reasonably straight line from fairy tales.

I had a very high opinion of my father's judgement of things and he said, "You better get a job that pays the bills because a writer doesn't make any money. If possible, get a job that allows you to write in your spare time."

The writer in movies is about as low as you can get and you really are a hired hand. You are paid a lot of money to be treated like dirt.

I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.

As a fairly innocent teenager, growing up in a village in Wales, I just thought, "God, I would like to go and hang about Soho and write great poetry and try to avoid drinking myself to death."

The BBC fulfils a wonderful cultural function. Maybe the problem is that it feels it needs to be everything to everybody.

I adore doing classic adaptations, but I also feel their frustrations and their limitations.