Acting, music, painting... it's very subjective. So what I might think is a great actor, you might think is not a very good actor at all.

Hobbits are a lot like Scots. It’s all about nature and enjoying their land, which is a very Scottish thing.

I like people like Ani DiFranco, a band called Elbow, of course John Lennon, George Harrison, Barry White. I have a lot of different influences and hopefully they all come together and make some sense.

I think all art is subjective - that whoever's watching it or listening to it will decide whether it's good or bad.

But you talk to most filmmakers and it is six, seven, eight years trying to get things off the ground. It is incredible really.

I wasn't into Tolkien at school really. But the story is timeless, the themes that it touches on are contained in cultures all around the world. The innocent on a quest, the pretender, an inanimate object that holds evil - it's really strange that these themes are there in so many different countries' folklore.

Rather than thinking, 'If I do this, and in five years I'll be where I want to be,' you're better just doing something that makes you happy now.