I've had pretty much the same crew for all the films that I've made, and I've managed to have really nice, calm, funny people. That is a big part of it, a family feeling of warmth and finding something interesting and making a platform for them to perform. It's a very difficult job, acting, in that it's totally counterintuitive to how we are brought up.

I'm very superstitious about going on other people's sets. You have to ask permission of the director; you shouldn't just turn up and skulk about in the background. It's very rude. You have to ask them personally. It's like a vampire being invited into a house.

The reality of any location in Britain being used in a TV program of a film is that something bad is going to happen! That's the nature of drama. Most of the things that get made or basically grisly detective shows about murders, accidents or medical dramas.

If you make a movie in the UK you've got to embrace the weather with open arms... We got some of the most amazing weather as well. It's maybe why some of these places, like the Lake District, don't get filmed in so much. If you were trying to make it look like some kind of chocolate box image of England you'd be there all year waiting for the sun to come out.

It's part of developing the whole state of how cinema is; everyone is looking out and engaged rather than it being just a financial thing or sitting back, waiting for scripts to turn up.

I think CGI is interesting but it's too expensive and limiting in terms of what you can do shot-by-shot.

Society is about masks and hiding and pretending to be something that you're not and not opening up, and in acting, you do all of those things, but it also shows the performers in a very raw state. They have to literally upset themselves to get to that position sometimes. You don't need a load of people judging you or not being interested in what you're doing or being an ass on set because it ruins it.