There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.

When I read 'Be real, don't get caught acting,' I thought, 'How the hell do you do that?'.

I've always been fascinated by the difference between the jokes you can tell your friends but you can't tell to an audience. There's a fine line you have to tread because you don't know who is out there in the auditorium. A lot of people are too easily offended.

Well, the film's not only pricking the pomposity of the Church, it's pricking the pomposity, and sometimes you would think fraudulence, of the insurance companies. I had never read anything like this until I was doing the film, but Mark [Joffe, the director] and people showed me stuff where, like a flood, it mattered where the water came from. If you're flooded from above, you get the money; if you're flooded from below, you don't. What's that about?

I'd always been scared of people with tertiary education and high intellects in case they found me wanting. I thought they viewed me as just a welder who knew a few jokes.

Killing a guy and stealing his wife and child isn't too nice a thing to do.

I was brought up as a Catholic. I've got A-level guilt.